Curfew shuts down uneasy Indian Kashmir

Videos
Photos

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-26 16:08

SRINAGAR, India -- The streets of Indian Kashmir's biggest city were deserted Tuesday as authorities enforced a strict curfew, a day after soldiers and police fired at Muslim protesters pressing for an end to Indian rule in the Himalayan region.

Kashmiri Muslim women walk past Indian policemen during a curfew in Srinagar August 26, 2008. Police shot dead at least four protesters on Monday in efforts to enforce a curfew in Kashmir in the face of some of the biggest demonstrations in two decades against Indian rule. [Agencies]

Unrest has roiled Kashmir since June, leaving at least 39 people dead, including five in the past two days.

The latest deaths came late Sunday in Srinagar, Kashmir's main city, and Monday in two towns and one village when security forces confronted angry protesters defying a curfew in the Kashmir Valley, the Muslim heart of India's Jammu and Kashmir state.

At least 38 people with bullet injuries were hospitalized in Srinagar during daylong street protests, doctors said.

The state government said in a statement that soldiers opened fire Monday after they were shot at by protesters, who wounded two soldiers and two police in Hajin, a village nearly 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Srinagar. At least 17 protesters were believed to have been wounded.

Separatist groups organizing the protests have repeatedly said such accusations are an attempt by authorities to justify the use of force against unarmed civilians.

"India has no reason to clamp down on peaceful protests," Masarat Aalam, a prominent separatist leader, said Tuesday.

Previous page 1 2 Next Page