CRPF Firing Kills Youth in Kashmir

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SRINAGAR: A youth has been killed in firing by paramilitary CRPF in Srinagar, just hours after 5 of their colleagues died in a militant attack on their camp.

This is the second killing by security forces since last Tuesday.

Altaf Ahmed Wani was hit by a bullet in the chest.

The police say the CRPF fired after a group of youth threw stones at their vehicle at Sangam bridge near Saidapora in suburban Srinagar.

However residents said Wani was simply sitting outside his house.

The incident has happened barely a few hours after fidayeen militants or suicide attacked stormed into a CRPF camp at Bemina and killed five soldiers besides wounded as many in number. Two suicide attackers were also killed.

Police sources told freepresskashmir.com that the CRPF members in the vehicle were returning after donating blood to their injured colleagues at the medical institute when a few boys pelted them with stones.

Perhaps fuming with anger after the militant attack earlier, they said, the CRPF personnel fired live bullets.

The killing has caused deep shock in the valley, where a 27-year-old youth, Tahir Sofi was killed after security forces fired their guns in north Kashmir’s Baramulla only last week. The army said they were attacked by an angry “mob”, but denied that they killed Sofi.

Then even the chief minister Omar Abdullah broke down in the assembly. “What should I tell the people, that those who killed the youth will not even be held accountable for it,” he told the legislative assembly.

Security forces in Kashmir are provided impunity under the AFSPA which makes prior sanction from the central government necessary for their prosecution.

Human rights activists accuse New Delhi of giving sanction for such prosecutions more often than not.

Meanwhile violent clashes between protesters and the police and paramilitaries have erupted in many parts of the downtown Srinagar. Police have fired tearsmoke shells to disperse angry youth who threw rocks at them in Zonimar, Nowabazar, Saraf Kadal, Soura, Eidgah and Soner Khud localities.