Widespread protests rocked Rafiabad in north Kashmir over the killing of a student in what the villagers claimed was a 'fake encounter'.

Pelting stones and shouting anti-government slogans, protesters refused to bury Mohammad Ramzan Shah, whose body was handed over to relatives by the security  forces.

"We have used batons and burst tear-smoke shells to control demonstrators,'' a senior police officer said.
"One additional superintendent of police and nine constables were injured in the clashes in which over two dozen civilians also sustained injuries.

Protesters alleged that Mohammad Ramzan Shah, a student of Sopore degree college, visited Mawar village Kupwara to meet his aunt when the security forces picked him up and later killed him in a fake encounter.

The police, however, said in a joint operation carried out by them and the troops of Rashtriya Rifles, two militants identified as Mohammad Ramzan Shah  and Abu Hamza alias Imran of Pakistan were killed. 

The army has also maintained that the youth had been a militant who engaged in a sustained gunfight with the security forces on Sunday in  Sherhama Mawar village. A defence spokesman here said arms and ammunition, including an AK 47 rifle, a pistol, 10 handgrenades and 04 AK magazines, were recovered from the slain militants.