Banda Aceh – Some 500 students on Friday held a peaceful rally here in Aceh's provincial capital to protest the death of a woman medical student allegedly shot by security forces the previous day.

The students staged a sit-in in front of the office of the chancellor of the Syah Kuala state university and read out a statement from the university student association which condemned the shooting of student Cut Fatin Hamama, 23, on Thursday.

"The big family of the Syah Kuala University condemns the shooting of the minibus in Indrapuri sub- district, Aceh Besdar, which led to the death of a female student," the statement said.

Hamama was in the front seat of the minibus when armed men in police uniforms sprayed the vehicle with bullets late on Thursday evening. An employee of the emergency ward of the Zainul Abidin hospital in Banda Aceh said Hamama was still alive when brought to the hospital around 8.15pm Thursday, but died a few minutes later.

Hamama, a medical student, died of a bullet wound to the head. Witnesses said the minibus was shot at by brigade members who were conducting street searches for separatist rebels who had attacked a police convoy there earlier in the day.

But the head of the Aceh police operation, Colonel Yusuf Muharam, denied the shooters were Brimob members. "It was not my subordinates who shot the female student," Muharram told journalists here.

Muharam said a group of police had been ambushed in the district around 6.30pm Thursday, leaving three members wounded in the shootout. "But because it was already getting dark, and to avoid falling victim to the local population, all Brimob [police mass control] personnel who had been rushed to the location had been ordered to return to their base," Muharam said. "We conducted no sweeps, so we don't know who shot the student. "What is clear is that it was not one of our personnel," he added.

Aceh, on the western tip of Sumatra island, has been wracked by clashes between Indonesian troops and Muslim separatist rebels who have been fighting for an independent state since 1976.

Perceived injustices by the central government and a decade-long military clampdown on separatists have sparked popular resentment and calls for a referendum on self-rule in the province, which is rich in oil and gas. The violence has already cost more than 300 lives this year.