SRINAGAR, India, Saturday (AFP) - A one-day strike called by Muslim separatists against New Delhi's rule brought Indian Kashmir to a standstill on Saturday, the latest protest to hit the region.
The strike, which closed shops, schools, banks and offices in Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, was one of a string of shutdowns and demonstrations called by separatists in the Muslim-majority Himalayan territory.
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| Activists of the Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party shout anti-Indian slogans during a rally in Lahore to condemn atrocities in Indian-controlled Kashmir. AFP |
“The strike is to protest against India's rule in Kashmir,” the region's leading moderate separatist politician Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told AFP from his family compound in Srinagar where he was placed under house arrest on Friday.
There were similar shutdowns in other towns of the Kashmir valley, according to police and residents.
Farooq, who is also the region's chief Muslim cleric, was put under house arrest along with two other top separatist leaders, Syed Ali Geelani and Yasin Malik, as security forces struggled to contain anti-India protests.
In the past few months, the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley has witnessed the biggest separatist demonstrations since the revolt against New Delhi's rule erupted in 1989.
The flare-up in unrest prompted by a row about land near a Hindu shrine high in the Himalayas has triggered a heavy crackdown by Indian security forces.
“The strike is also to protest the crackdown on pro-freedom demonstrations,” said Farooq.
Last week, authorities lifted a nine-day curfew -- the longest to be imposed since the anti-India militancy was at its peak in the early 1990s -- to coincide with the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Since June, at least 39 Muslims and three Hindus have died in police shootings in the Kashmir valley and the mainly Hindu area of Jammu, further to the south, as authorities struggled to quell the protests.
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