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Boy, 11, shot dead in Kashmir
Human rights campaigners have called on the Indian government to prosecute soldiers and paramilitary police after an 11-year-old boy was shot dead in Kashmir.
By Dean Nelson, New Delhi
Published: 4:44PM BST 31 Aug 2010
Kashmiri Muslim protesters shout anti Indian slogans behind a burning tyre during a protest in Srinagar Photo: EPA
They were speaking amid growing concern over the numbers of teenagers and children killed by Indian security forces during protests in the restive state. Up to 65 have been killed in the last 11 weeks, including a nine-year-old boy whose family claim he was beaten to death by armed police.
According to witnesses, Irshad Ahmad Parray, 11, was among a group of young men staging an anti-India demonstration when police opened fire on them with rubber bullets.
He was rushed from the scene in Anantnag to the state capital Srinagar where doctors said he had received pellet wounds to his vital organs and was dead on arrival.
The death of Irshad caused particular concern among human rights campaigners because he was shot with a rubber bullet which had been issued to reduce the number of civilian deaths. Paramilitary police had been ordered to use 'non-lethal methods of crowd control after Indias prime minister Manmohan Singh voiced his concerns.
Meenakshi Ganguly of Human Rights Watch said she was increasingly alarmed at police using lethal force as a first option. Its appalling. Were asking for proper training and accountability. Soldiers are not punished, but if they were prosecuted they would be more careful, she said.
The police said the boy was part of a violent demonstration in which protesters were throwing stones at police.
His death, and the shooting of a relative of a Kashmiri separatist leader as he played a board game outside his home in Srinagar, sparked fresh protests.
Yasir Malik, a cousin of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik, was shot and seriously injured in an apparently unprovoked attack.
Police sources later said the constable who shot him had been suspended.
Boy, 11, shot dead in Kashmir - Telegraph