SRINAGAR, India: Anti-India protests and clashes erupted in several places in disputed Kashmir on Thursday after Indian troops killed a young man, officials and residents said, and an Indian soldier and a rebel were killed in a separate gunbattle.
Residents in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar, said government forces shot and killed the young man during a raid early Thursday. The man worked as a shepherd and he was attending to his sheep when troops fired at him, they said.
Police have yet to make a statement.
The killing triggered protests and clashes as hundreds of people poured into streets at several places in downtown Srinagar calling for the end of Indian rule. They chanted slogans like “Go India, go back” and “We want freedom” as some of the residents barraged police and paramilitary soldiers with stones.
Government troops fired tear gas and shotgun pellets to quell the protests while authorities restricted movement in old quarters of the city.
Later thousands attended the man’s burial.
Elsewhere, India’s army said a soldier and a rebel were killed Thursday in a gunbattle in southern Qazigund area.
Col. Rajesh Kalia, an army spokesman, said the troops raided a village in the area on a tip that some militants were hiding there, leading to exchange of gunfire. He said the operation was ongoing.
Also on Thursday, at least two militants were trapped in a mosque after troops laid a siege around it in Panzan village, police said.
As the siege continued, villagers tried to march toward mosque in solidarity with the rebels, leading to clashes between stone-throwing protesters and government forces who deployed tear smoke shells and pellets.
No one was immediately reported injured in both the clashes.
Most Kashmiris support the rebel cause of unifying the divided region either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country, while participating in civilian street protests against Indian control. In recent years, mainly young Kashmiris have displayed open solidarity with rebels and sought to protect them by engaging troops in street clashes during military operations.
Rebels have been fighting Indian control since 1989. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.
Indian troops, residents clash in disputed Kashmir
Indian troops, residents clash in disputed Kashmir
- Residents in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar, said government forces shot and killed the young man during a raid early Thursday
- Government troops fired tear gas and shotgun pellets to quell the protests while authorities restricted movement in old quarters of the city
End of US-Russia nuclear pact a ‘grave moment’: UN chief
- Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the United States and Russia to quickly sign a new nuclear deal, as the existing treaty was set to expire in a “grave moment for international peace and security.”
The New START agreement will end Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” Guterres said in a statement.
The UN secretary-general added that New START and other arms control treaties had “drastically improved the security of all peoples.”
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time — the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” he said, without giving more details.
Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework.”
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads but arms agreements have been withering away.
New START, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads — a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.
