The protest, in which demonstrators shouted: "We want freedom, long live Islam", came as 10 more people died on Friday in fresh violence. The victims included a Muslim man and his two children killed when a "gift" bomb exploded in their faces. The demonstrators also chanted prayers for the woman and her daughter slain in the attack near the missionary school. The Jihad Council, an alliance of over one dozen Mujahideen groups, based in Azad Kashmir condemned the attack and blamed the blast on "Indian agencies and state-controlled police."
"We need to find out who did this," said Imtiaz Ahmed, a relative of Thursday's dead victims, urging an independent probe. "We can't just take the government's word." Indian intelligence "agencies are carrying out such cowardly acts in response to our successful strikes," the Jihad Council said in a statement released in occupied Srinagar. A police spokesman termed the allegations "absurd," adding, "militants have done this in the past and they did it on Thursday too."
Stores and businesses in Lal Chowk closed their doors to protest the blast and lawyers in occupied Srinagar staged a daylong strike and demanded an independent inquiry into the attack. Meanwhile, in other violence the Muslim man, his daughter and son who were killed when a wrapped "gift" exploded in their house has mystified police who say the family had no political links. Troops also shot dead seven suspected freedom fighters in separate clashes.