Violence Flares as Kashmiri Protesters Are Thwarted
By SOMINI SENGUPTA and YUSUF JAMEEL
Published: August 11, 2008
NEW DELHI — Indian security forces, in a bid to stop thousands of protest marchers from the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley from approaching the disputed frontier with Pakistan, on Monday fired into crowds and killed a prominent Kashmiri separatist, the Kashmir state government said.
The government swiftly responded by imposing a curfew on Srinagar, the valley’s principal city, for the first time in a decade or more. At least 3 died in the protests, which were prompted by a blockade of the main road between the valley and the plains of northern India. More than 100 were injured, mostly in Srinagar and in Baramullah, a town about 27 miles from the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir. Monday’s violence threatened any immediate prospects of calm within Indian-controlled Kashmir, the state known as Jammu and Kashmir, which has been roiled by increasingly ugly tensions between Hindus and Muslims in recent months. Though India has largely succeeded in suppressing a violent separatist insurgency, the underlying bitterness remains.
The latest outburst began in late May, when the state government turned over 98 acres of land to a panel that administers Amarnath, a popular Hindu shrine high in the Himalayas. Those Muslim protests faded after the government rescinded the order, but then Hindus in the plains of Jammu erupted. Hindu nationalists blocked a vital highway linking the Kashmir Valley, with its Muslim majority, to the plains of northern India. Their blockade prevented essential supplies from flowing into the valley and the main cash crop — apples, at the height of harvest — from being shipped out.
Apple farmers and traders said last week that they intended to break the blockade by trucking produce through Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
They did not get very far. On M0nday, Indian security forces thwarted marches from numerous cities and towns across the valley well before they reached Line of Control.
The state government said Monday night that police had warned the marchers not to proceed beyond Baramulla, but “the crowd did not relent and in order to disperse the unruly and violent mob, the police was forced to open fire.” A bullet was said to have killed Sheikh Abdul Aziz of the moderate separatist coalition known as the Hurriyat Conference, in Baramullah. Its leader, Umar Farooq, who is also chief cleric of the Kashmir Valley, said Mr. Aziz, a former militant, died instantly. Speaking on Indian television Monday night, Mr. Farooq warned that the killing would make matters worse. “The people of Kashmir are not going to sit still at the death of a leader,” he said on NDTV.
Asked repeatedly whether a march to Pakistan was wise at a time of heightened tension, Mr. Farooq said the road blockade had left Kashmiris with no choice, describing it as “a war against the people of Kashmir.”
Police vans with loudspeakers ranged through Srinagar announcing a curfew. Thousands defied the call, carrying Mr. Aziz’s body from the main government hospital to the historic Grand Mosque, chanting pro-freedom and pro-Islam slogans.
A mob razed a paramilitary police booth at the hospital entrance.Aapparentlyin retaliation, police forced their way into wards and fired tear gas, Dr. Wasim Qureshi said from the hospital.
The troubles in Kashmir province are the worst since the anti-Indian rebellion in the 1990s. For several years the government has sought to restore normal life, including launching a bus service for Kashmiris to visit relatives by crossing between the Indian and Pakistani areas of Kashmir. Peace talks underway between India and Pakistan since 2003 have made progress, even on the thorny issue of Kashmir.
What a sad thing to do. May the deceased rest in peace.
I hope Indian forces are not opening random shoot-outs in demonstrating crowds. But for now, i have to give them the benefit of doubt because i wonder if they were targeting specific person (potential troublemakers mixed in with crowds)....
Any thoughts guys?
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Location: usually somewhere between srinagar and san francisco
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The death toll is up to 8 now...with another 250+ injured in police & military firing. These Indian forces are so bereft of regard for human life that they had no problem firing tear gas shells into hospital wards.
Still, even as we speak, tens of thousands more are getting ready to march to Muzaffarabad tomorrow.
SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Government forces fired at Muslim protesters for a second day Tuesday as demonstrators defied a curfew in Indian Kashmir, killing 13, police said.
Thousands of troops enforced the indefinite curfew, which was imposed across Muslim-majority areas of the state after a leader of an alliance of nonviolent separatist groups and four others were killed Monday during a protest by tens of thousands of Muslims.
They were opposing a blockade by Hindus of a key highway that has stranded hundreds of trucks carrying food and other supplies in and out of the region. The unrest was the latest in a dispute over a Hindu shrine in India's only Muslim-majority state that has exposed tensions between Muslims and Hindus in the region.
Six protesters were killed in several incidents Tuesday in Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir, police officials said. Two died in Nagbal village on the city's outskirts and three others were killed in Paribal, a village 40 miles to the north, they said.
Two protesters died in Jammu, the only Hindu-majority city in the region, when police opened fire at an angry Muslim mob that attacked Hindu shops and homes, senior government official Sudhanshu Pandey said.
A protester injured in Monday's violence also succumbed to his injuries Tuesday, his doctor, Ajaz Mustafa, said.
Tens of thousands of mourners chanted "We want freedom" as they defied the curfew and attended the funeral Tuesday of Sheikh Abdul Aziz, a leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, at Srinagar's Martyrs Graveyard.
Aziz was killed Monday when police fired into a large crowd of Muslims attempting to march to the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir to protest the blockade by Hindus of the highway linking the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley with the rest of India. The shooting occurred in Chehel, about 30 miles from the de facto border separating the Indian and Pakistani portions of Kashmir.
Two other leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Omer Farooq, defied house arrest and the curfew to attend Aziz's funeral.
"Our struggle for complete independence from India will continue. No power on earth can deter us from achieving this," Farooq told the crowds.
Traders say the region faces shortages of food and medicine because of the highway blockade, and complain that hundreds of truckloads of Kashmiri fruit are spoiling because they cannot be delivered.
The federal government said Tuesday it was open to the idea of traders exporting their products across the border to neighboring Pakistan.
"However, a decision in the matter can be taken only through mutual arrangements between India and Pakistan," the Home Ministry said in a statement.
The violence is part of an escalating crisis that began in June with a dispute over land near a Hindu shrine and has inflamed tensions between Muslims and Hindus in India's only Muslim-majority state.
The Hindu minority was angered when the state government reversed a decision to give about 100 acres of land to a Hindu trust to build facilities for pilgrims near the shrine. Muslims had complained that the gift of land would alter the religious balance in the region.
The dispute triggered weeks of violent rioting and touched off one of the worst political crises to hit a region plagued by years of brutal fighting between separatist rebels and Indian security forces.
“As long as I have any choice, I will stay only in a country where political liberty, toleration, and equality of all citizens before the law are the rule.” Albert Einstein
have'nt seen anyone open a thread when there was infighting in lebanon and in GAZA... far many people were massacred in the streets than in valley...but thats fair isnt it??? muslims killing muslims isnt a big deal for many of u guys these days...
point a fingure at india when muslims themselves value the lives of their fellow mussalman...
call for separatism/subversive activity against state and for marching to enemy country amount to treason.democracy allows fair trial for those who follow law of land no for those involved in separatist activities.Btw enough of this double standards by kashmiri muslims .they latch on secularism and democracy etc when they r at receiving end .they want other faiths to follow it but not for themselves.thats all evident from kashmiri pundits issue.
genocide,pogrom,massacre,slaughter has become too rosy and catchy words these days among muslim world untill they themselves look into their backyard. if u say that these protest were peaceful then i say these were not so police fired upon.period.
Which is why i'm asking you to prove your stance on it...because the protestors (as reported by ALL media) were unarmed and fed up with the blockade which stopped them from transporting goods, fruits, etc.etc.
I'm surprised you would say this because should something similar happen to your countrymen, you'd be all awww because it's unfair, barbaric, terrorism, and all those other rosy and catchy terms which are widely used these days.
Just for the record, read my first post, i said i give them benefit of the doubt but you make me think otherwise...I hope i'm not wrong in what i said in my first post.
The 300-km long national highway linking Jammu with Srinagar and the lifeline for people living in the Kashmir valley has been cleared of all disruptions by the Army from August 4 onwards to help movement of goods to and fro from the Valley in the backdrop of the ongoing Amarnath shrine land agitation.
The all-party delegation, which visited Srinagar over the weekend, was also informed by the State Government that there was no economic blockade on the national highway and trucks were moving without hindrance.
Elaborating on the efforts undertaken by the Army, an official spokesman on Tuesday said the Army escorted a total of 10,389 vehicles on the National Highway-1A, the only surface link between the Kashmir valley and the rest of the country, over the past eight days since troops were deployed on the highway on August 4.
He said the Army was deployed on Jammu-Pathankot and Jammu-Srinagar highways to ensure smooth movement of trucks, including petrol tankers, carrying essential supplies to the Kashmir valley and other parts of the State and fruits, especially apples, from Srinagar to other States.
Giving a break-up of the number of vehicles escorted, he said 2,263 loaded trucks, 487 empty trucks, 764 buses, 97 oil tankers, 58 Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder-carrying trucks and 1,212 light vehicles from Jammu to Srinagar were safely escorted.
The traffic from Srinagar to other parts of the country included 1,743 loaded trucks, 460 empty trucks, 961 buses, 164 oil tankers, 22 LPG and 2,165 light vehicles, he said, adding the sincere and constant work of the Army under a tense situation ensured movement of regular supplies on the national highway.
Meanwhile, the State Government briefed the all-party delegation, which visited the Valley recently, that there was no economic blockade and there were sufficient number of trucks available in the Valley to transport fruits to other parts of the country.
"It came to our notice that there were 30 truck loads of fruits available in the Kashmir market for transportation. The administration made available 90 trucks to the local vendors. But they did not use it under fears from separatists," a member of the delegation told The Pioneer.
People's Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti and some Hurriyat leaders had reportedly asked local traders to march towards Muzaffarabad (in PoK) with their produce (fruits).
The initial disruption in the traffic, sources pointed out, was mainly because truck drivers from Punjab, a few of whom were beaten up when they entered the valley, refused to operate.
It is reported that Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal immediately spoke to them and the situation turned normal.
Location: usually somewhere between srinagar and san francisco
Posts: 1,305
^
Nothing but Indian lies. The army can claim whatever it wants...there are shortages of everything from drugs to paper in Kashmir thanks to the blockade.
Meanwhile the Indian terrorists have murdered at least 27 unarmed protesters, including women and children, over the past two days...it seems like India is bent on showing the entire world what a nation of criminals and terrorists it is.
Even if the news is/was true. It took the precious lives of many who were martyred while voicing their frustration. Shooting at unarmed civilians is no show of power or might no matter where you live or what the spin on the issue maybe.
Not a good thing at all. It would be fair to say, "The damage has been done".
call for separatism/subversive activity against state and for marching to enemy country amount to treason.democracy allows fair trial for those who follow law of land no for those involved in separatist activities.Btw enough of this double standards by kashmiri muslims .they latch on secularism and democracy etc when they r at receiving end .they want other faiths to follow it but not for themselves.thats all evident from kashmiri pundits issue.
Take if from Kashmiri (me) Kashmir was never & will never be part of hindu terrorist sate. We DO NOT want to be part of your fascist nation & we will liberate our people & land from terrorist hindu army. Mark my words!!!
Take if from Kashmiri (me) Kashmir was never & will never be part of hindu terrorist sate. We DO NOT want to be part of your fascist nation & we will liberate our people & land from terrorist hindu army. Mark my words!!!
Kashmir is /was a part of Indian main land. Read some history (the Histtory kasmir is well written. All major indian literature has redfernce to this paradise) You learn from history if you can... Only after this bloody religion so many divisions so many countries....idiotic religion with truly idiotic followers!!
have'nt seen anyone open a thread when there was infighting in lebanon and in GAZA... far many people were massacred in the streets than in valley...but thats fair isnt it??? muslims killing muslims isnt a big deal for many of u guys these day
May the deceased rest in peace.
