Infinite curfew imposed amid Kashmir violence

Associated Press

Saturday, 31 July 2010

Authorities imposed an indefinite curfew across violence-wracked Indian Kashmir today as anti-India protests and clashes between Kashmiri Muslims and government forces continued.

The rigid curfew was ordered a day after four people were killed and another 80 were wounded as government forces fired on thousands of protesters, a police officer said.

The mostly Muslim region, where resistance to rule by predominantly Hindu India is strong, has spent most of the past six weeks under curfew following raging street demonstrations by Kashmiri Muslims and strikes ordered by separatist groups. The four deaths yesterday raised the number of people killed in clashes to 21.

The violence continued today despite tens of thousands of armed police and paramilitary soldiers in riot gear patrolling Kashmir's towns and warning residents to stay indoors.

Protesters set fire to a counter-insurgency police force camp in Kreeri, a village north-west of Indian Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, according to the police officer. Security forces fired on the protesters, wounding three, the officer said. One of the two injured women in hospital was in critical condition, he said.

Similar protests were reported elsewhere in the Kashmir Valley.

The recent tension in the Himalayan region - divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both - is reminiscent of the late 1980s, when protests against New Delhi's rule sparked an armed conflict. More than 68,000 people have been killed, mostly civilians, in the conflict.

Separatist politicians and militants reject Indian sovereignty over Kashmir and want to carve out a separate homeland or merge with predominantly Muslim Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have fought two wars over control of Kashmir since 1947. Both claim the region in entirety.

  • DisputedTerritory
    A mess left by Britain at the time of partition which we are clearing up! Hindia is an occupying force in Kashmir and is responsible for 100,000 killings, raping women and countless human rights violations to suppress the sentiment of Kashmiri people which is HINDIA QUIT KASHMIR. Kashmir was never part of Hindia and will never be. A study done by 'Medicins Sans Frontieres', an eminent French journal, in mid 2005, revealed that Kashmiri women are among the worst sufferers of sexual violence among the world. Over 9800 women raped and molested, 22100 women have been widowed till April 2007. Interestingly, these figures are much higher than Sierra Leone, Chechnya and Sri Lanka. Most of the rapes in Kashmir go unnoticed due to the stigma, these women face in the society. Also, according to a 1994 United Nations publication (E/CN.4/1995/42, pp.63-69) , it says that during 1990 to 1996 alone, 882 women were reportedly raped by security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. This clearly reflects an unjustifiable abusive policy towards Kashmiris. The story of unmarked graves in Kashmir seems tragic, and on the contrary, it has been subjected to confusion. Many journals drafted at Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch have explicitly stated that many unmarked graves in Kashmir are deemed as graves of unidentified foreign militants, by the Government of India, who in reality were picked up by Indian Armed Forces, killed in custody and then falsely identified as foreign militants. In many cases, when relatives have succeeded in their demand to have graves exhumed, their claims have been found to be correct.
  • adil_ikram
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10834322 - Just have a read of this, may this make you a bit logical
  • adil_ikram
    9 innoncent civilians have been killed in two days - If that sort of state terrorism would have happened in any other part of the world this would have been an headline for most of these so called 'independent media' outlets.This suppression and corning of legitimate voices would lead to what ? I believe that's not something difficult to perdict ...
  • Halfassedmonkeyboy
    Indeed. Consider me reprimanded.
  • timspooner
    or perhaps indefinite....................
  • No wonder the ISI can't come to London, they're busy :D
  • Halfassedmonkeyboy
    Think they meant indefinate
  • timspooner
    Infinite? Are you sure? That would seem to be a very long time............

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