Students clashed with security personnel across Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, after authorities re-opened the educational institutes that were shut down because of tension in the Valley.

On Wednesday, the Jammu and Kashmir government had deployed security forces in Srinagar and other sensitive regions in the state to maintain law and order. The state has been tense since Sunday when 19 people – 12 militants, three Army personnel and four civilians – were killed in three separate gunfights in South Kashmir’s Shopian and Anantnag districts. Educational institutes had postponed the exams scheduled for Wednesday, while train and road services were suspended.

Students of Kashmir University boycotted classes and protested with placards against the killings, the Greater Kashmir reported. Students from a college in Kupwara and many institutes in Srinagar, including Islamia College and Amar Singh College, and Government Degree College in Bemina also participated in the march, raising slogans for “azadi” and against India.

At the Nowgam campus of the Central University of Kashmir, students offered funeral prayers for the civilians and militants who were killed.

Security personnel fired tear gas shells to stop the protests, triggering clashes. The students also pelted stones at the security forces and set ablaze a police picket outside a stadium in Srinagar.