By Sheikh Mushtaq
SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian troops fired at hundreds of stone-throwing Muslims protesting against elections in Kashmir Saturday, killing two people including a teenage boy and wounding 20, police and witnesses said.
The violence in north Kashmir's Baramulla town comes a day before the second phase of seven-stage elections that are seen as a test of legitimacy of New Delhi's rule in the disputed region.
"Security forces fired indiscriminately, killing 16-year-old Manzoor Kumar on spot," Haroon Ahmad, a witness, told Reuters by telephone.
"Down with elections! We want freedom!," the protesters shouted while carrying away Kumar's body.
The vote is the third election in the state since an insurgency began in 1989 and which has killed at least 47,000 people since then.
Most separatist leaders remain in jail or under house arrest. They have renewed an appeal for a boycott of the elections and urged the people to hold protests against the vote.
Police said more troops were deployed in Baramulla town, 54 km (34 miles) north of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, to quell protests triggered by Saturday's deaths in police firing.
Indian authorities were encouraged by a decent turnout in the first round of the state elections in a region beset by massive anti-India protests earlier this year.
Government forces killed at least 42 people during those protests.
In the past, separatist guerrillas have attacked and killed scores of candidates and political workers, vandalised polling stations and attacked rallies to thwart elections.
But early this year, the United Jihad Council (UJC), a Pakistan-based militant alliance fighting Indian troops in Kashmir, rejected the use of violence to force a boycott of the staggered, month-and-half-long elections.
Earlier Friday, 18 people were wounded in clashes between police and Muslims protesting against the elections,
Violence has declined significantly since India and Pakistan, which both claim the region in full and rule in part, began a slow-moving peace process in 2004.
(Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Bill Tarrant)
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