Intense clashes broke out on Monday at MA Road, close to Lal Chowk, the heart of Srinagar, when colleges reopened after seven days' break.
Colleges were closed after students across Kashmir took to streets on April 17 against the assault by security forces on the students of a college in Pulwama on April 15. 50 students were injured in the incident.
When colleges opened, students of SP higher secondary school poured on the streets and commenced protests.
The police swung into action and tried to prevent the marches.
The students retaliated with stones and brickbats.
Frightening scenes were witnessed at MA Road after irate students surrounded a police vehicle and attacked it with stones and bricks.
Some of the students climbed on to the roof of the vehicle.
Others pelted the vehicle with stones and smashed it with sticks.
The police showed great restraint and fired scores of tear smoke shells, but no bullets.
The clashes forced closure of shops and led to traffic snarls.
A number of private vehicles were seen stuck between Polo View to Sheri Kashmir Park.
The area between Ghanta Ghar, clock tower, at Lal Chowk to Residency Road and beyond presented the look of an area as if ravaged by storm.
Several reporters, relaying the clashes live, had to scurry for cover after they were caught in barrage of stones.
The clashes were so intense that it seemed police would open fire to prevent getting lynched by the mobs.
The students near the women's colleges also joined the protests. Several of them were seen pelting stones and shouting slogans.
Several policemen were injured in the clashes.
A senior police officer said they didn't chase the students inside the colleges as it would have flared up the situation across Kashmir.
"We refrained from chasing them into the college because it would have been seen as an assault on the institution," the officer said.
SP Imtiyaz Parlay and deputy SP Imran Ahmed were also injured in the clashes.
Parry was injured in the elbow and Ahmed was hit in the back and ankle.
The violence happened on a day when Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to start a dialogue with separatists and youth of Kashmir.
Earlier, militants murdered PDP district president Abdul Gani Dar in Pulwama in south Kashmir.
