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[DAWN] Indian government forces killed two turbans who tried to snatch a guard’s rifle in disputed Kashmire, police alleged in a statement on Friday.As word of the killings spread, protests against Indian rule and festivities erupted in the region.
At least two men were trapped overnight in a home on the outskirts of Srinagar after they tried to take the rifle from an officer guarding a local leader of India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, police said, adding that the officer was maimed.
Counterinsurgency police and soldiers cordoned off the neighbourhood and killed the two men in the exchange of gunfire that followed, they claimed.
The slain men were from neighbouring Pulwama district, where officials ordered schools and colleges to be closed on Friday in an attempt to stop student protests.
Protests and festivities occurred separately in another village north of Srinagar after authorities sealed it on a tip that some suspected turbans were hiding there.
Police said a brief shootout followed, but at least two turbans escaped during the severe festivities between rock-throwing protesters and government forces using tear gas. No casualties were immediately reported.