THE Indian army has denied claims that it framed three young Kashmiri men who it shot dead last week.

Security forces insisted that the trio had died during a gunfight last Tuesday and claimed that they were supporters of an armed Kashmiri group which had been planning an attack.

But the families of the three victims — Zubair Ahmad Lone, 25, Ather Mushtaq Wani, 16, and Aijaz Maqbool Ganai, 22 — said the men were innocent and were murdered in “another case of a staged gunfight.”

Zubair’s brother, Irfan Ahmad Lone, said the encounter was “clearly fake” and accused the authorities of a cover-up.

The men left their homes just hours before the alleged gun battle took place in Srinagar, the main city in Muslim-majority Kashmir.

Their families insist that the Indian army abducted and killed them in a “fake encounter” or encounter killing — terms used in India to describe an extra-judicial execution.

Mr Lone said: “I want to ask the army, how did my brother become a militant within hours? Where did he get weapons and join militancy? Where did he get himself trained in hours?

“We want the world to talk about it because they will kill more people in fake encounters in the future.”

But Major General HS Sahi insisted that the men were planning a “huge attack” and had ignored calls to surrender.

The bodies were buried in secret graves about 75 miles from their homes, under government policy to deny funerals which attract large crowds.

At least 100 Kashmiris are believed to been buried in such graves since India moved to strip the region of its semi-autonomous status in August 2019.

In late December, Indian police accused an army officer and two associates of planting weapons on the bodies of three labourers killed in Kashmir to make it look as though they were fighters in a gun battle which the army has admitted was staged.