Srinagar: Police patrolled the streets of Kashmir yesterday, threatening to shoot anyone defying a round-the-clock curfew a day after 19 people died in battles between troops and protesters in the disputed region.
Still, hundreds of anti-India protesters took to the streets of the region's main city of Srinagar and half a dozen other places.
Government forces responded by firing live ammunition and tear gas to disperse them, police said. At least 14 people were wounded, according to police and a resident.
The Himalayan region has been wracked by anti-India protests throughout the summer, but the chaos on Monday — exacerbated by reports of a Quran desecration in the United States — was the deadliest since large-scale demonstrations began in June.
Kashmir has been under a 24-hour curfew since Saturday evening, though it has been regularly defied. In an attempt to prevent another round of violence, police and paramilitary soldiers drove through the area's main towns, using loudspeakers to announce that curfew violators would be shot on sight.
Authorities suspended all flights to Srinagar because of security fears, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to release the information.
Across the region, hundreds of protesters chanted "Go India, go back" and "We want freedom." They also burned effigies of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a top regional official.
In Srinagar and several surrounding towns, soldiers and police fired both above crowds and into them and launched tear gas canisters to disperse the protesters, some of whom were hurling rocks, according to police officials.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information to the media. In all, police officials said at least 12 people were wounded in the face-offs, two of them critically.
Women hospitalised
In the southern town of Bijbehara, a resident said government forces fired at scores of women who alleged that the troops beat men in their homes. Two women were hospitalised, Manzoor Ahmad said. Police said they were investigating the Bijbehara incident.
In Tangmarg, which was rocked by massive protests Monday, nearly three dozen people were arrested in the wake of the violence, said a police officer, also on condition of anonymity. Town residents said about 30 men were missing since the clashes with police.
The region has been roiled for months by separatist protests that often descend into clashes with government forces. The violence has killed at least 88 people this summer _ mostly teenage boys and young men in their 20s.
The anti-India protests turned into rare anti-US protests on Monday as reports of a Quran desecration in the US intensified the anger of demonstrators, with activists chanting "Down with America" and burning an effigy of President Barack Obama. Protesters torched government buildings and a Christian missionary school and threw rocks at troops, who responded by firing live ammunition into crowds.
