NEW DELHI — A Kashmiri man convicted in the 2001 attack on India's Parliament has been hanged in an Indian prison after a final mercy plea was rejected, a senior Indian Home Ministry official said Saturday.

Home Secretary R.K. Singh told reporters that Mohammed Afzal Guru was executed early Saturday morning in New Delhi's Tihar prison.

"It was the law taking its course," Singh said.

He was given a Muslim burial in the prison compound, Press Trust of India news agency reported. His family in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has demanded that his body be handed over but that seems unlikely given the highly sensitive nature of the execution.

On Saturday, at least four people were wounded as protests broke out in three parts of Indian Kashmir, including the northwestern town of Sopore that was Guru's home. Scores of protesters defied a curfew and clashed with police and paramilitary troops who opened fire. The four protesters sustained bullet wounds and one of them was in critical condition, a senior police officer said on customary condition of anonymity.

Thousands of police and paramilitary troops have fanned out across the state preparing for more protests and violence following the announcement of the execution. A curfew was also imposed in the Himalayan state. Cable television channels in the region were also cut off in the region.

Guru had been on death row since first being convicted in 2002. Subsequent appeals in higher courts were also rejected and India's Supreme Court set an execution date for October 2006. However, his execution was delayed after his wife filed a mercy petition with India's president. That petition, the last step in the judicial process, was turned down earlier this week.

Several rights groups including political groups in Indian Kashmir have said that Guru did not get a fair trial.

Guru confessed in TV interviews that he helped plot the attack that killed 14, including all five attackers. He later denied any involvement and said he was tortured into confessing.

Government prosecutors have said that Guru was a member of the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, a charge Guru denied.

Guru's family said that they had not been told that he was about to be executed.

"Indian government has yet again functioned like a fascist state and hanged him secretly," said Yasin Guru, a relative who lives in the family's compound in Sopore.

"They did not have the courtesy to inform his family."

When Guru's death sentence was handed down by India's Supreme Court it sparked protests in Kashmir and the state government has warned that his execution could destabilize the volatile Himalayan region.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Muslim-majority Kashmir which is divided between Hindu-dominated India and Muslim-majority Pakistan but is claimed by both nations.

Since 1989, an armed uprising in Indian-controlled Kashmir and an ensuing crackdown have killed an estimated 68,000 people, mostly civilians.

Guru's execution was carried out in secrecy similar to the execution in November of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

On Saturday, police in Indian Kashmir also detained several leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella organization of separatist political and religious groups, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to reporters.

Associated Press reporter Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar contributed to this report.