Teacher dies in army custody

Soldiers raided a village in restive Indian-administered Kashmir overnight in an attempt to quash ongoing protests, leaving one civilian dead and dozens injured, police and witnesses said yesterday.

Villagers said soldiers from a nearby Indian army camp ransacked homes in Khrew village and beat residents with bamboo sticks, leading to the death of a teacher.

"They beat up men, women and children and took away many young men with them. We discovered the battered body of Shabir Mangoo on a village street in the morning," said one villager who asked not to be named, fearing reprisals.

Army spokesman Colonel N N Joshi confirmed the raid on the village 25 kilometres (16 miles) south-east of the main city of Srinagar, saying "the incident is being investigated".

Indian-administered Kashmir has been in the grip of almost daily anti-India protests and rolling curfews sparked by the killing on July 8 of a popular rebel leader, Burhan Wani, in a gunfight with government forces.

"One person was also found dead after the raid," a police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that around 28 villagers were taken away by the soldiers.

The army raid -- the third in recent days -- comes after five weeks of unrest that have left more than 60 people dead.

India has clamped down hard on protests, with the army accused of using brutal tactics to suppress demonstrators.

"First the electricity went off and soldiers soon started attacking our home, beating up all of us including my 10-year-old niece," villager Ghulam Hassan told AFP from his hospital bed in Srinagar.

Dr Nazir Chaudhary, medical superintendent at the main SMHS hospital in Srinagar told AFP 24 injured villagers had been admitted for treatment.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International India has temporarily closed its offices and postponed events aimed at raising awareness of rights abuses over safety concerns for its staff after the charity was accused of sedition by protesters, a spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Political activists held demonstrations against the rights group on Tuesday and Wednesday, accusing it of inciting hatred against the state during an event it hosted on abuses by Indian security forces in the troubled Kashmir region.