Violence erupted in Jammu and Kashmir after 16-year-old Zahid died in a New Delhi hospital on Sunday, after he was seriously injured during a petrol bomb attack in the state’s Udhampur district on October 9. As news of his death reached the Valley, protestors in the district of Anantnag blocked the Jammu-Srinagar highway, shouted slogans against the government and pelted stones at security personnel.

A group of men had attacked the truck Zahid was sleeping in during protests fuelled by rumours that a cow had been slaughtered in the district.

Beef has been a sensitive issue in the state after the Jammu and Kashmir High Court enforced an eight-decade-old ban on the meat, polarising the state’s residents. A Member of Legislative Assembly, Engineer Rashid, was beaten up after he threw a beef party to protest against the law on beef, in Srinagar on October 7.