SRINAGAR (AFP/Reuters) - Four protesters were killed Friday when security forces opened fire during anti-India protests in Indian-held Kashmir, a day after the start of the fasting month of Ramazan, police said. Security forces have fired in at least three places to quell violent protesters. Four people have died, said a police official, who did not want to be identified. Some of the injured, he said, were critically wounded. The killings took the death toll from two months of violent protests in the Muslim-majority region to 55. The deaths came as All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was freed from weeks of house arrest by authorities and led thousands of residents through the main city, Srinagar, in a protest against Indian rule. The protesters chanted: We want freedom as they moved slowly through the streets. Farooq, who is also the regions head priest, delivered a sermon in the main mosque which was thrown open for prayers for the first time in seven weeks. If Indians think by killing our young children they are going to suppress this movement, they are mistaken, Farooq said, as worshippers interrupted his speech with shouts of blood for blood. The first shooting death on Friday was of a 17-year-old youth in Trehgam village, north of Srinagar. Hundreds of people came out on the streets after dawn prayers and held a noisy anti-India demonstration, witness Abdul Rashid said, accusing security forces of opening fire without provocation. Ramazan began on Thursday in Kashmir, where struggle against Indian rule has been under way for 20 years, and which has seen a massive surge of popular unrest in recent months. Police said they resorted to firing live rounds only after demonstrators started pelting them with stones. The 65-year-old man was shot dead when troops fired teargas and live ammunition after hundreds of protesters attacked a police station in Patan town, also north of Srinagar, police said. Security forces shot dead two more teenagers in Sopore town, about 50 km north of Srinagar, after teargas and a baton charge failed to quell a demonstration after Friday prayers, police said. The violent anti-India protests, which began when a teenage student was killed by a police teargas shell on June 11, have brought IHKs towns and cities to a standstill. The majority of protesters killed have been young men and teenagers. Each fatality has fuelled fresh anger, in what IHK Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has acknowledged is a cycle of violence. Kashmiri leaders had called upon residents to stage protests on Friday and observe a general strike against Indian rule which closed shops, schools, offices and banks in Srinagar and other towns in the region, police said.