SRINAGAR, Feb 11 (1995) – Indian paramilitary forces shot dead five civilians in retaliation for an armed attack by Kashmiri separatists, police said on Saturday.
They said militants on Friday fired from close range at a Border Security Force (BSF) unit manning a checkpoint in the old quarter of Srinagar, the summer capital of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.
One BSF officer died on the spot and a second died later in an army hospital. The militants escaped with a BSF service rifle, police said.
Police said paramilitary forces then avenged the deaths by killing five civilians. Local residents and the United News of India news agency said all five were shopkeepers whose stores were near the troopers’ sand bunker.
The Press Trust of India (PTI), quoting a senior security officer, said BSF troops had lost their temper and opened fire on passers-by, killing five shopkeepers and injuring 37 others.
Most of the injured were hurt in a stampede which followed the firing by the troops, PTI said.
BSF and army forces deployed in Jammu and Kashmir are largely drawn from other parts of mostly Hindu India, while police are generally residents of the state, India’s only Moslem-majority state.
The bodies of the five victims were handed over to their families on Saturday morning, police said. Paramilitary forces fanned out across the old city on Saturday to prevent any protest demonstrations.
Business and transport ground to a halt in the Kashmir valley on Saturday as residents marked the 11th anniversary of the death of Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, founder of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), who was hanged by authorities in 1984.
Almost all shops and other commercial establishments in the valley were closed and there was little traffic. Most government offices were closed.
Police and hospital officials say more than 17,000 people have been killed since a rebellion against Indian rule broke out four years ago.
