Asia-Pacific
2 attackers killed as Kashmir gunbattle ends
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-07 21:45
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 A man gestures behind an Indian policeman as they look towards a hotel where militants were holing up during a gun battle in Srinagar January 7, 2010. [Photo/Agencies] |
Hours after the gunbattle ended, a photographer for a local newspaper, Greater Kashmir, was shot in the leg by a police official, according to at least four journalists present at the site.
"We were busy photographing the scene when suddenly were heard a gunshot and saw our colleague Aman Farooq lying on the ground in a pool of blood. We asked the officer, 'Why did you shoot him?' and he said, 'No, I didn't' and ran away," said Imran Ahmed, a local reporter.
After the attack began Wednesday, hundreds of locals gathered on the edges of the district and chanted pro-independence slogans and clashed with troops, who used bamboo batons and tear gas to disperse them.
Anti-India sentiments run deep in the majority Muslim region, where more than a dozen rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from India, or its merger with neighboring Pakistan since 1989. More than 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
"We can only say that if there is no political solution to the (Kashmir) problem, these attacks are bound to happen," said Shakeel Ahmed Bhat, a software engineer with a shop in the area where the attack took place.
