SRINAGAR, India (Aug 27, 2008) — Indian authorities arrested top separatist leaders in Kashmir on Monday in a bid to quash unrest that has left at least 39 people dead since June.
The five latest deaths came amid protests 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.
Doctors say at least 38 people with bullet injuries were hospitalized in Srinagar alone during daylong street protests.
Officials said in a statement that soldiers opened fire Monday in Hajin, a village nearly 30 kilometres from Srinagar, after protesters allegedly shot and wounded two soldiers and two policemen.
At least 17 protesters in Hajin were believed to have been wounded.
While there was no immediate reaction from the separatist groups that are organizing the protests, they have repeatedly said such accusations are an attempt by authorities to justify the use of force against unarmed civilians.
In a telephone call to a local news agency, Current New Service, a man identifying himself as Abdullah Gaznavi and a spokesman for militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, condemned the arrest of separatist leaders.
“If atrocities against people of Kashmir are not stopped, the situation in India will change adversely for which the Indian government will solely be responsible,’’ Gaznavi told the news agency.
Kashmir’s crisis began in June when Muslims launched protests complaining that a government decision to transfer land to a Hindu shrine in Kashmir was actually a settlement plan meant to alter the religious balance in the region.
After the plan was rescinded, Hindus took to the streets of Jammu, a predominantly Hindu city, demanding it be restored.
The unrest has unleashed pent-up tensions between Kashmir’s Muslims and Hindus and has threatened to snap the bonds between India and its only Muslim-majority state.
There was more unrest Monday in Jammu, where police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of stone-throwing Hindu protesters, police said.
Throughout the morning, pro-independence chants were blaring from the loudspeakers of mosques, and there were scattered protests, most of which were quickly dispersed by police and soldiers.
Kashmir has been divided between Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan since 1947 when the two fought their first war over the region in the aftermath of Britain’s bloody partition of the subcontinent. Both countries continue to claim Kashmir in its entirety.
Separatist movements were mostly peaceful until the start of an Islamic insurgency in 1989. The rebels want to see India’s part of the region merged with Pakistan or given independence. At least 68,000 people have been killed in the fighting.