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Deadly Clashes Continue in Kashmir

13 August 2010 17:38 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Four people were killed, bringing the total number of dead to at least 55 since the unrest began in June, APA reports quoting â€œNew York Timesâ€.
Kashmiris have been marching in increasing numbers, and in increasingly bold defiance of 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 equipped security forces use live ammunition to fend off angry, stone-throwing crowds. The resulting deaths have fed still more protests, and the state government has resorted to calling in still more troops to try to wrest control of the streets.
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 Prayers and threw stones at a camp occupied by Indian paramilitaries, 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 curfew, police officials said. A 23-year-old man died of a gunshot wound.
In Srinagar, the regional capital, officials did not impose curfew, and Friday Prayers 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.
Many Indian paramilitary forces were deployed in Kashmir 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.