SRINAGAR, India (AFP) — Fresh violence hit Indian Kashmir on Wednesday as thousands of Muslims took to the streets to bury the victims of two days of deadly protests in the revolt-hit area, witnesses said.
The main city in the Kashmir valley, Srinagar, remained tense with Indian security forces easing a total curfew for a few hours so beleaguered residents could stock up on food and other supplies.
Officials said the toll from anti-India protests in the disputed Himalayan region on Monday and Tuesday, which were met with police and army gunfire, stood at 21 dead -- all of them local Muslims -- and at least 500 injured.
Gunfire rang out in the city on Wednesday, as large numbers of police and paramilitaries struggled to keep furious residents locked in their homes, an AFP correspondent said.
Thousands of residents chanting "Indian troops go home" and "we will spill blood for blood" also poured onto the streets of Srinagar to join funeral processions for two Muslims who died of wounds in hospital early Wednesday.
Police and residents reported protests from several other parts of Srinagar and the Muslim-majority valley, which has been hit by an anti-Indian insurgency since 1989.
Among those gunned down by Indian security forces on Monday was a prominent, moderate separatist leader, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, who was leading a protest near the Line of Control, which divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
Two senior separatist leaders, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Geelani, have called for "non-violent protest demonstrations" to continue.
"We call upon the nation to observe three days of mourning and hold peaceful demonstrations," Farooq said.
He also called on Kashmiris to observe August 15, India's Independence Day, as a "black day."
The latest unrest, triggered by a Kashmir government decision in June to donate local land to a Hindu pilgrimage trust, shattered several years of relative calm brought about by the India-Pakistan peace process.
Authorities cancelled the land transfer after deadly protests, but that sparked riots in the Hindu-dominated south of Jammu and Kashmir state, with Hindu hardliners attacking Muslims and blocking the only road to the valley.
Residents say the protests have also highlighted a growing frustration among Kashmiris that the peace process, launched in 2004, has yielded no progress on the dispute over the future of the region.
The dialogue was to address all issues of contention, including the status of Kashmir -- which each country holds in part but claims in full.
But on-off negotiations between the two nuclear-armed rivals have remained bogged down in mutual recriminations over cross-border militancy and terror attacks.
India also refuses to scale down its massive security contingent in the Kashmir valley, a major cause of local resentment due to frequent charges of human rights abuses.
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