Two dead after police open fire in Kashmir

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir (CNN) -- Indian paramilitary forces gunned down two youths in Kashmir on Saturday, one of them a high school student apparently taking part in an anti-India demonstration, authorities said.

Protesters pelted stones at escort vehicles of Mir Mushtaq, a congressional party candidate, as he passed through Baramulla, a town in Indian-controlled Kashmir, about 55 km (34 miles) from Srinagar, a senior police officer told CNN.

Police opened fire on the protesters, killing 10th-grader Manzoor Ahmad Kumar, the officer said. Kumar's body was carried by hundreds of protesters into Baramulla's "Old Town" area, where clashes broke out between demonstrators and officers enforcing a strict curfew. Six protesters were injured in the fighting, police said.

A police official said a second youth, Tanvir Ahmad Sheikh, was fatally shot by paramilitary forces in the Old Town area. No other details were immediately available on the second shooting.

Violence in the past four months has left nearly four dozen dead and hundreds wounded in Kashmir, which has been in the throes of a bloody separatist campaign.

The region has also been beset by mob violence triggered by the allotment of land for a Hindu shrine -- a decision that caused a sharp divide between Hindus and Muslims. Indian authorities have detained several separatist leaders.

Hundreds of thousands of people have attended four previous marches organized by separatists, who favor independence from India.

India has announced a seven-phase election here for the state assembly -- the first of which was held November 17. The separatists have called for a poll boycott in Kashmir, saying the election is not a solution for them.

Indian authorities have arrested nearly all of the senior and mid-level separatist leaders in Kashmir while others, including the chairman of the moderate separatist conglomerate, All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), Mirwaiz Moulvi Omar Farooq, have been put under house arrest to prevent their participation in the anti-poll campaign.