SRINAGAR, Feb 7 (1990) – Indian troops shot dead two store clerks in troubled Kashmir on Wednesday after apparently panicking over an accidental gas explosion, the father of one of the victims said.
Police did not confirm the deaths but said five people were injured in the gas blast in the Lal Chowk business district.
Mohammad Yusuf said his son ran outside after a gas cylinder blew up and security men shot him dead. “They apparently panicked at the blast and fired indiscriminately,” he said.
The second victim was a shopkeeper in the same building.
Doctors at a local hospital said two people with fatal bullet wounds were brought to the hospital morgue.
The deaths occurred as a 13-hour curfew relaxation was about to end in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian-ruled Jammu and Kashmir state, which has been rocked for months by separatist Moslem unrest.
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over Kashmir and growing tension between the two countries has provoked fears of a fourth conflict.
Earlier on Wednesday, militants threw a hand grenade at a police post, injuring four policemen.
In Jammu, the state’s winter capital, about 300 Hindu protesters marched through the streets, shouting slogans against Pakistan and burning an effigy of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
About 5,200 Pakistanis marched to the town of Deeli near the border with India on Wednesday and shouted anti-Indian slogans before heavy rains dispersed them, police in Jammu said.
The two India-Pakistan wars over Kashmir began with border intrusions amid high tension, similar to those that have occurred this week, which then quickly escalated.
“We like to think we’ve learned the lessons of history,” a foreign ministry spokesman said when asked if there were any parallels between the current tensions and the wars in 1948 and 1965.
Pakistan, which controls a third of Kashmir, blames the revolt on India’s refusal to hold a plebiscite on the state’s future and denies Indian charges of arming the militants and fuelling the protest.
