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Four persons, including a 60-year old man, were killed and a dozen others received bullet injuries in fresh violence in Kashmir on Friday.
Paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force troopers opened fire at a mob that attacked their camp with stones in Bomai village of north Kashmir's Baramulla district on Friday afternoon.
According to a senior police officer, two teenagers, Sameer Ahmad Lone, 19, and Mohammad Arif Mir, 18, were killed on the spot and two others critically wounded in the firing which he said was resorted to after other means of crowd-control failed.
He said the two injured were shifted to Srinagar for specialised treatment.
Mobs later re-grouped and indulged in heavy stone pelting on the paramilitary and police forces who were responding with teargas and baton charges.
Tension in Bomai and adjoining Sopore town heightened in the wake of the latest killings.
A 60-year old man who was critically wounded in north Kashmir's Pattan town after being hit by a tear smoke shell on his head succumbed to injuries in the Soura Medical Institute, where had been brought in an unconscious state.
Doctors at the institute tried their best to revive Ali Mohammad Khanday, whose condition, however, deteriorated after which he succumbed.
Mobs in Pattan town defied curfew and engaged security forces in clashes using stones and rocks. A woman was also wounded in the town, 30 kms from capital Srinagar.
In the adjacent Palhallan town on the Srinagar Muzaffarabad road, security forces opened fire at a mob that indulged in heavy stone pelting on a camp of the special operations group of the state police.
Four persons who received bullet injuries in the security force firing were shifted to hospitals for treatment. The mobs later re-grouped and were pelting stones at the police.
Earlier on Friday morning a mob defied curfew restrictions in the Trehgam village of frontier Kupwara district and indulged in stone pelting at the security forces who opened fire after baton charges failed to disperse the mob.
A youth identified as Mudasir Ahmad Zargar, 21, was killed in the security force firing. Two women were also injured in the incident.
Thousands of people converged at the historic Jamia Mosque in the old city where prayers were offered for the first time after nearly two months because of curfews and security restrictions.
The chairman of the moderate separatist conglomerate, Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq, addressed the congregation and asked 'India to take concrete steps to solve the dispute.'
The sprawling mosque reverberated with 'we want freedom' slogans.
Mirwaiz had been under house arrest and was released on Friday morning. He later led a huge procession through the old city.
However, immediately after the Friday prayers, mobs took to streets shouting anti-India and pro-freedom slogans and later indulged in stone pelting in various localities of the old city.
Security forces fired teargas and used baton charges to disperse the protestors. However, as the mobs swelled resulting in more violence security forces opened fire to break the crowd at Nowhatta in which three persons were wounded.
One of the critically injured youth was shifted to the medical institute with a critical bullet wound in his head.