http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/world/asia/14kashmir.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

August 13, 2010

Deadly Clashes Continue in Kashmir

By LYDIA POLGREEN

NEW DELHI — Kashmiris demanding independence from India flooded the streets in protests across Kashmir on Friday, clashing repeatedly with the police and Indian security forces, the authorities said.

Four people were killed, bringing the number of dead to at least 55 since the unrest began in June.

The Kashmiris’ protest marches have been growing as people have boldly defied strictly enforced curfews in an effort to force India to withdraw its troops from the disputed region, which is claimed by India and Pakistan. It was the first Friday of the Ramadan fasting month, and many people in the mostly Muslim region tried to visit mosques to offer prayers.

The clashes dampened hopes that Ramadan, during which Muslims neither drink nor eat from sunrise to sunset, would cool the simmering anger here. The protests, which began when a teenager was killed by a tear gas shell in June, have spiraled into a broad, unarmed popular revolt that Indian authorities have struggled to control.

Poorly trained and ill-equipped security forces use live ammunition to fend off angry, stone-throwing crowds. The resulting deaths have only fed the protests, and the state government has called in more troops to try to wrest control of the streets from the protesters.

On Friday, police officers fired on a crowd of protesters in the town of Pattan, and a 58-year-old man died of injuries sustained there. In the separatist stronghold of Sopore, a large crowd gathered after Friday Prayer services and threw stones at a camp occupied by Indian paramilitary troops, who opened fire, killing two people, the police said.

In Kupwara, a local official ordered the police to open fire on a crowd of 2,000 people who had gathered in defiance of the curfew, police officials said. A 23-year-old man died of a gunshot wound there.

In Srinagar, the regional capital, officials did not impose a curfew, and Friday Prayer services were held at the historic, pagoda-shaped mosque for the first time in six weeks. Officials had feared violence if they tried to prevent worshipers from visiting the mosque.

Violent protests have broken out in Kashmir for the past three summers but this year they have taken on a new intensity as the protesters have become less willing to obey the curfew and more willing to confront the security forces.

Indian paramilitary forces have remained in the region since they were deployed to fight a brutal, Pakistan-backed insurgency that swept across the Kashmir Valley in the 1990s. They operate under special laws that shield them from prosecution, and many Kashmiris say that this has led to many human rights violations in the region.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

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