NEW DELHI — Police opened fire on protesters in Indian Kashmir on Monday, wounding at least four, witnesses said, after a week of escalating demonstrations over the deaths in late May of two young women.
Many locals accuse Indian troops or paramilitary forces of raping and killing the women, part of what they say is a pattern of sexual violence used to intimidate and humiliate the civilian population.
Military leaders brand such accusations as slander.
The protests followed the release of a police forensic report Sunday that indicated the women had been raped. But it stopped short of giving a cause of death.
The past week has seen a general strike, the suspension of rail service, detention of a prominent political leader and at least 400 demonstrators injured and one killed.
The protest Monday was the largest so far, with up to 15,000 people trying to reach Shopian, where the bodies were found — 37 miles south of Srinagar — despite a police lockdown.
