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[DAWN] Indian troops killed three Kashmiri youths, including at least two engineering students, in held Kashmire's Islamabad district on Monday, triggering widespread protests in the region, according to local and international media reports.Indian forces conducted a pre-dawn raid on a cluster of homes in a village in Anantnag on a tip that Lions of Islam were hiding there and came under fire from them, police said.
"Troops retaliated and in the brief fighting three Lions of Islam were killed," claimed Altaf Khan, a local police officer.
Those killed were identified as Eesa Fazli from Srinagar, and Syed Owais and Sabzar Ahmad Sofi from Anantnag district, according to agency reports cited by the Times of India.
According to the ToI report, Fazli was a B.Tech student at Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University in Rajouri district.
Indian officials alleged that the three killed were separatists who were bumped off by security forces in a gunbattle.
As the news of the killings spread, protests and festivities against Indian rule broke out in several parts of the region.