Srinagar:
Kulsoom sits in a corner of her home, her young son in her lap, his head bandaged. She rubs his back - the automatic reflex of a mother who knows her child is comforting. Her eyes, however, are distant, reliving the nightmare she lived just a few hours ago.
"It was a mob. They pushed my father and my elder son out of the car. One man hit my elder son on the head. Another man pushed me and hit my baby lying in my lap," Kulsoom said.
And that is how her younger son, Irfan, 11 days old, was killed by street protestors who stopped her car when she was taking him to the hospital.
The mob was protesting against the Jammu and Kashmir government's crackdown on stone-pelters, who have turned Srinagar's streets into a new sort of battleground. Their near-daily clashes with the security and police forces have turned them into an exhausting opponent.
But on Monday afternoon, in Baramulla, they turned their wrath onto Kulsoom's two sons. Three-year-old Obaid and newborn Irfan were hit repeatedly.
"What was the fault of the infant? Why did he have to die like this? " asks Irfan's grandfather, Ghulam Rasool.
Already this month, 50 policemen and as many civilians have been injured in the war between stone-pelters and security men. The police say this is calculated violence, funded by Pakistan, to destabilise Kashmir's security. Those who support the stone-pelters describe this as a new sort of unarmed struggle against subjugation.
A case of murder has been registered against unknown people.
Away from Kulsoom's house of mourning, Irfan's death has ignited politics at the Assembly in Jammu."This is the result of the encouragement these stone pelters are receiving from various political quarters, including unfortunately from the principal opposition party based out of Kashmir,'' says the Chief Minister of the state, Omar Abdullah.
In turn, Mehbooba Mufti who heads the People's Democratic Party accuses Abdullah of failing to maintain law and order.