Thousands throng funeral for 14-year-old boy killed in IOK

SRINAGAR, India: Thousands of mourners thronged the funeral on Monday of a 14-year-old boy shot dead by Indian troops in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), the youngest-ever fighter killed in the decades-long movement, police said.

Mudasir Ahmad Parrey was killed alongside two other fighters, one a 17-year-old, outside the city of Srinagar on Sunday.

Parrey, a ninth-grade student, went missing in August before emerging in a photograph on social media brandishing an automatic assault rifle and military knife.

The young fighters´ deaths sparked angry protests in the restive Himalayan region administered by India but also claimed in full by Pakistan.

A funeral procession Monday for the slain teenagers turned violent as mourners clashed with police, who used tear gas to drive them back.

People fighting for Kashmiri independence or a merger with Pakistan have been warring with Indian troops in the disputed territory since the late 1980s.

The violence has left tens of thousands dead, mostly civilians.

But this year has been the deadliest in a decade in IOK, with rights monitors saying more than 500 people have been killed from armed conflict.

Many young men die fighting Indian troops but Parrey´s death shocked even a region weary from years of bloodshed.

At 14, police said he was the youngest known fighter to have died in the insurgency.

"He had never failed in school exams," mourned his father, Rashid. The teenager also sometimes worked as a labourer to help out with family expenses, he added.

Many Kashmiris sympathise with the people fighting half a million Indian troops stationed in the heavily-militarised Muslim-majority region.

Civilians often pelt soldiers with stones while they are conducting search operations for ‘militants’, and funerals for slain fighters draw thousands of mourners and see shops closed.