Police officer beaten to death in Indian-controlled Kashmir

The incident followed clashes between residents and government forces in the area.

Police chief S.P. Vaid said the officer was on duty at the mosque and some people “among the worshippers lynched and martyred him.” He said two alleged attackers were arrested and a third suspect has been identified.

Kashmir’s top elected official, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, told reporters at the officer’s wreath laying ceremony that the police were exercising “maximum restraint as they were dealing with their own people.”

“If they run out of patience, it will be a very difficult situation,” she said.

Since last year, police have increasingly come under attack from both anti-India protesters and rebels fighting against Indian rule. Many policemen have been killed and their homes ransacked by suspected militants in a warning to local police officials to stop participating in counterinsurgency operations.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a top separatist leader and Kashmir’s chief cleric who was present in the main mosque at the time of the officer’s lynching, condemned the incident in a tweet on Friday as a “brutal act.”

“Mob violence & public lynching is outside the parameters of our values & religion… We cannot allow state brutality to snatch our humanity & values,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, authorities Friday imposed stringent curfew in old parts of Srinagar and did not allow Friday prayers at the Jamia Masjid.

The last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan is observed as “Al-Quds Day” and “Kashmir Day” in the region in solidarity with Kashmiris and Palestinians.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety. Rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir’s independence or merger with neighbouring Pakistan. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting and the ensuing Indian crackdown. Anti-India sentiment runs deep among the region’s mostly Muslim population and most people support the rebels’ cause against Indian rule.

India has accused Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, which Pakistan denies.

Rebel groups have largely been suppressed by Indian forces in recent years and public opposition to Indian rule is now principally expressed through street protests.

Aijaz Hussain, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Police officer beaten to death in Indian-controlled Kashmir

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