Soldiers on Wednesday gunned down two men in the forests of Kashmir, claiming they were terrorists, but villagers said one of the men was a carpenter who mistakenly wandered into an Army ambush.
The shooting occurred early on Wednesday in the Kudoor Satri forest, 85 kilometers (53 miles) north of Srinagar. According to Army spokesman Co Hemant Juneja of the Army ambushed two terrorists, sparking a gunbattle in which they were killed. Two assault rifles and some ammunition were recovered from the site of the clash, he said.
Police identified the two men as Mohammad Yousf Paswal and Mohammad Ashraf Khan.
But residents in Chuntimulla and Sumlar villages near the forest staged a protest, saying 40-year-old Khan was a civilian and a carpenter by profession.
"Khan had gone to the forest for collecting firewood. He was a civilian not a terrorist," said Mohammad Wali, Khan's neighbour.