Shopian killings trigger student protests across Kashmir

Several students were injured as students of various colleges and universities across Kashmir on Thursday held protests against the killing of five civilians and 13 militants in Shopian on April 1.

The students, including females, of Kashmir University, marched through various departments holding placards to protest the killings.

They raised anti-India and pro-freedom slogans.

Similar protests were held at Central University Kashmir (CUK) campus in Nowgam on the outskirts of Srinagar.

At both the universities, reports said, funeral prayers in absentia were offered for the slain militants and the civilians.

Students of various colleges in Srinagar also held protests soon after they re-opened after a three-day closure over Shopian killings.

Students of Amar Singh College here torched a police picket near Sher-e-Kashmir Indoor Stadium.

An eyewitness said protesting students reached near the stadium and set ablaze the picket.

No policeman was present there when the incident took place. Intense clashes were earlier reported outside the college premises.

Reports of protests by students were also received from north Kashmir's Handwara and Kupwara and central Kashmir's Sumbal and Ganderbal areas.

Three students suffered injuries during clashes with police and CRPF when students of Handwara Degree College tried to march out of the college premises.

However, police and paramilitary forces swung into action and charged the students with batons to disperse them, eyewitnesses said.

Earlier, hundreds of students gathered inside the premises of Degree College Sumbal and offered funeral prayers in absentia for thirteen militants and four civilians slain in Shopian gunfights.

In April, May and June 2017, hundreds of students were injured during clashes with security forces across Kashmir.

The protests were organised across colleges and higher secondary schools in the Valley in 2017 and the mobilisation shook the political and security establishment,

For weeks together, the government had closed most of the colleges and higher secondary school to stop the wave of protests.

The 2017 mobilisation was not only unprecedented and biggest in terms of number of participants, but also widespread, representing almost every nook and corner of Kashmir valley and parts of Chenab Valley in Jammu division.