The new deaths came as thousands of Kashmiris poured onto the streets shouting “Go back India” and “We want freedom” as New Delhi grappled to find ways to end the escalating pro-independence demonstrations.
Women and children joined young men staging protests, defying curfews imposed across the mainly Muslim region to contain the spiralling unrest.
Police said two men died when security forces fired on stone-hurling protesters blocking a highway north of Srinagar.
“We were forced to open fire because of the violence,” a police spokesman said.
Another young man was killed by police who fired on stone-pelting demonstrators in southern Anantag town, police said.
Dozens of demonstrators were also injured in Saturday’s clashes and ferried by anxious friends and family to Held Kashmir’s already jammed hospitals where doctors have been working around the clock.
The almost daily popular protests are the largest since the armed struggle erupted against New Delhi’s rule and have confronted it with a deep internal crisis.
So far, 102 protesters and bystanders, mainly young men, have been killed since June according to an AFP tally, mostly by security forces firing on demonstrators who were pelting them with stones, chunks of wood and concrete.
Top Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Geelani has called for protesters to block police and army camps with “peaceful” sit-ins starting next Tuesday, posing a new challenge to security forces struggling to restore order.
London-based human rights group Amnesty International appealed to Indian authorities to order security forces not to use firearms against demonstrators.
