What is happening in Kashmir between students and Indian government forces?

World Today

A Kashmiri student throws a chair on Indian policemen as they clash in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, April 17, 2017. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

At least 100 Kashmiri students were injured Monday in anti-India protests and clashes with government forces in the divided Himalayan region.

The protests began in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s key city of Srinagar when hundreds of college students took to the streets to protest a police raid in a college in southern Pulwama town on Saturday, in which at least 50 students were injured.


What is happening in Kashmir?

Police said the first clash occurred after officers tried to stop hundreds of students from marching in the city’s main commercial hub. The students were chanting slogans “Go India, go back” and “We want freedom.”

The protests soon spread to several colleges in Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir, leading to pitched battles between rock-throwing students and government forces firing shotgun pellets and tear gas. At least 100 students were reported injured. Officials said some police officers also were hurt.

Kashmiris have been seething with anger since April 9, when eight people were killed by government troops during clashes on a polling day for India’s parliament seat. Only about 7 percent of the area’s nearly 1.3 million voters cast ballots, the lowest turnout in elections over the past five decades.

The Monday’s protests were called by Kashmir University Students Union, a banned student body. A statement by the students’ union said that Saturday’s violence highlighted India’s “sole ‘policy’ in Kashmir: to rule by repression and fear.”

Rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety.

Story by The Associated Press