LOC18:16
15:16 GMT
NEW DELHI, May 30 (KUNA) -- Violent protests erupted in Srinagar, the
summer capital of Indian administered Kashmir, after authorities stopped a
popular separatist leader from visiting quake-affected regions of the state.
Shops and other business establishments downed their shutters in key
business areas including Lal Chowk and Budshah Chowk after the separatist
leader Yasin Malik's supporters came out on streets in protest, official
sources said.
Malik, who is the chairman of pro-Independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation
Front (JKLF), had planned to visit Doda district in the south of the state
with an aid to be distributed to affected families. Protesters said the
authorities last evening confiscated the aid and also prevented Malik and his
aides to enter the area.
JKLF supporters, raising anti-India slogans, pelted stones at police
personnel posted in the area, forcing the authorities to use batons and tear
gas shells to chase them away.
Additional police and paramilitary forces have been deployed in the area.
No one has been hurt in the clashes so far.
Kashmir remains at the core of all disputes between India and Pakistan
since 1947. Both countries rule it in portions but claim it in entirety. India
and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars and a mini war in 1999 over
Kashmir where anti-India sentiments run deep and an insurgency is underway
since 1989.
However, violence has ebbed in disputed Kashmir ever since India and
Pakistan entered into a ceasefire in 2003. But sporadic attacks targeting
Indian soldiers and police continue to take place.
Indian soldiers and local police have often been criticized by rights
groups for human rights violations in the Himalayan region, where an estimated
70,000 people have died since 1989.
Elsewhere in South Kashmir's Shopian district and adjoining areas, normal
life was hit in a shutdown called by hardline pro-Pakistan Hurriyat Conference
led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani to commemorate the fourth death anniversary of
two women who were allegedly raped and murdered under mysterious circumstances.
Although a government probe in 2009 concluded the two women drowned in a
stream; Indian rights activists, separatists, locals and family members of
both women Asia Jan and Neelofar believe Indian soldiers and local police
might have been behind the deaths that rocked disputed Kashmir in 2009
plunging the entire state in crisis. (end)
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KUNA 301816 May 13NNNN