Indian troops shot dead Kashmir Separatist Leader

Shravan Shuddha Dashami

Srinagar (J&K): Indian troops shot dead a Kashmiri separatist leader and four other protesters on Monday as they tried to halt huge Muslim demonstrations in the revolt-hit region, witnesses said.

Sheikh Abdul Aziz, a former militant turned moderate political leader, was killed while taking part in a protest march close to the Line of Control, which separates the Indian and Pakistani parts of the Himalayan region.

A police official said four other protesters were killed on a day of fierce clashes in the disputed Kashmir valley.

A doctor at Srinagar’s main hospital, Manzoor Ahmed, confirmed Aziz died of a gunshot wound.

"We will spill blood for blood," Aziz’s supporters chanted as they carried his body out of the hospital, signalling the killing could unleash a new round of violence after several years of relative calm.

Security forces immediately imposed a strict curfew in Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir and the hub of the 19-year-old revolt against New Delhi’s control over the Muslim-majority region.

Aziz, who was 52, was a prominent member of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of moderate Kashmiri separatist groups at the forefront of the political struggle against Indian rule in Kashmir.

The shooting came as Indian security forces tried to prevent about 100,000 Muslims from marching towards the de facto border with Pakistan — one of the biggest protests ever seen in Kashmir.

The marchers had reached a point just 40 kilometres (24 miles) from the heavily militarised border despite repeated efforts by Indian police and paramilitary forces to stop them with tear gas, rubber bullets and warning shots.

Police said the day’s violence had also left at least 200 people injured.

Kashmir has been hit by increased unrest in recent months, underscoring what locals say is the boiling resentment about the fact that the peace process between India and Pakistan — launched in 2004 — has led to no progress on the thorny issue that has caused two wars between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The latest tensions stem from an order by the state government, issued in June, to donate land to a Hindu pilgrimage trust.

The decision sparked a series of violent protests by Muslims that left at least six people dead.

The plan was then cancelled, only to cause riots in Hindu-dominated Jammu, while Hindu hardliners began blocking road access to the Kashmir valley — a move that has badly hit Muslim traders.

The blockade has led to shortages of essentials such as medicines — prompting the protest march to Pakistan, so that fruit growers and traders can sell their produce on the other side of the border.

"This is the real face of Indian democracy," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the head of the moderate separatist alliance, adding that Aziz’s death was a "big loss" to the separatist movement.

"For demanding lifting of an economic blockade we get bullets, while Hindu fanatics who are attacking Muslims in Jammu and setting their property on fire are allowed to do whatever they want," he fumed, appealing for international action.

Aziz, who had been jailed on several occasions for demanding Indian Kashmir be handed to arch-rival Pakistan, is the third prominent separatist leader to have been killed since the eruption of the Muslim insurgency in 1989.

Fresh tensions were also reported along the Line of Control Monday, with the Indian army accusing Pakistan of another ceasefire violation that sparked a brief exchange of mortar and small-arms fire.

New Delhi accuses Islamabad of pushing militants into the Indian part of Kashmir, a charge Pakistan denies.

Source: afp.google.com