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Third Day Of Protests Rocks Indian-Held Kashmir
SRINAGAR, Feb 17 (News Agencies) - Indian police on Saturday extended a curfew in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar as sporadic anti-Indian protests rocked the troubled region for the third day running.
The curfew on several areas of the Kashmiri summer capital followed minor incidents of stone-throwing early Saturday, said a police spokesman.
Influential Kashmiri leader, Shabir Shah, who defied the curfew, was arrested along with five to six other Muslim leaders.
Two demonstrators were injured by gunfire during a protest in downtown Srinagar, one seriously, witnesses said.
Police denied firing the shots.
"It was not police firing ... someone from within the crowd fired from his pistol and managed to escape, creating more confusion to the situation," a police spokesman said.
Sporadic clashes between stone-throwing local residents and the police continued until Saturday evening in several areas of Srinagar.
Police said five people, including an officer of the counter-insurgency Special Operations Group, two police informers and two Kahmiri fighters, were killed in other parts of the province on Saturday.
Protests were also staged in south Kashmir where demonstrators blocked the main highway, the only surface link of the valley with the rest of the country.
Witnesses said that in several rural areas residents took to the streets and shouted anti-government and pro-freedom slogans.
The new unrest came after police Friday opened fire on hundreds of demonstrators in Srinagar, killing one Muslim youth and wounding three others.
Clashes and protests flared across the troubled Himalayan region on Friday in response to an incident Thursday when troops shot dead four people at Higam, north of Srinagar during a protest over the death of a Kashmiri independence activist.
At least a dozen policemen and eight protestors including Javed Mir, leader of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, were hurt in Srinagar and Baraamulla districts on Friday.
"It is nearly eight years since such a large-scale protests and violence by the public has been found in Kashmir," said political commentator Tahir Mahiudin.
India's cabinet is set to decide Sunday on whether to extend its unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir beyond February 26th.
An estimated 34,000 people have died in Muslim-majority Kashmir since groups launched an anti-India campaign 12 years ago.
The Himalayan region is divided into Indian and Pakistani zones, and is claimed by both countries.
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