World | India
Sporadic violence rocks Kashmir despite land deal
Sporadic clashes broke out in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday as anger festered against a deal with Hindu groups to resolve a land dispute that has paralysed and polarised the state.
- Agencies
- Published: 23:54 September 1, 2008
- Image Credit: Reuters
- A Kashmiri boy carrying a packet of milk watches a policewoman while crossing over a barbed wire fence during the curfew in Srinagar on Monday.
Srinagar: Sporadic clashes broke out in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday as anger festered against a deal with Hindu groups to resolve a land dispute that has paralysed and polarised the state.
The dispute over forest land near a Hindu shrine has sharply divided Hindu-majority Jammu and mainly Muslim Kashmir, the two main parts of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
At least 38 people, mostly Muslims, have been killed since the row snowballed into some of the biggest pro-independence demonstrations in the Kashmir Valley since a revolt against Indian rule broke out in 1989.
The government announced a deal with Hindu groups on Sunday, sparking celebrations in Jammu.
In Kashmir, however, the deal has been rejected by separatists and some mainstream parties. A curfew remains in place but more protests are planned, separatists said.
Police fired rubber bullets at protesters in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir's summer capital, hitting a roadsweeper in the chest with a rubber bullet.
Most shops remained closed in the city. Federal police, mostly Hindus who do not speak the Kashmiri language, patrolled nearly every street corner armed with automatic rifles and batons.
Barbed wire cordoned off entire neighbourhoods. Barbed wire cordoned off entire neighbourhoods. Many passers-by stopped to show journalists bruises they said had come from police beatings.
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