Police fire on funeral of Kashmir man killed by soldiers
SRINAGAR, India — Government forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir fired shotgun pellets and tear gas at hundreds of mourners Saturday during a funeral march for a man killed when he was run over by a paramilitary vehicle during a protest.
The angry mourners were marching with the man’s body to a graveyard in Srinagar on Saturday when police and soldiers used force to stop them. Police said the marchers were defying a government order that bans assembly of more than four people in the city.
Residents said youths from the funeral regrouped in the winding streets of the city’s downtown and threw stones at troops while chanting slogans in favour of rebels and demanding an end to Indian rule over disputed region. Fierce clashes broke out in several places in the city.
Police later took the custody of the body and said they would allow only a handful of relatives to take the body for burial in the city’s main martyr’s graveyard where hundreds of rebels and civilians killed since the start of an anti-India armed rebellion are buried.