SRINAGAR, Feb 27: Several thousand Shias on Monday held demonstrations for a fourth consecutive day in occupied Kashmir to protest at the bombing of two shrines in Iraq, witnesses said.

The biggest demonstration was held in Srinagar with protesters burning a huge effigy of US President George W. Bush, who is due in India later in the week, they said. The effigy was emblazoned with the words “Muslim-Kush G.W. Bush” (“anti-Muslim G. W. Bush”). It was set alight in front of a small UN military office in Srinagar as protesters, many wearing black headbands, shouted anti-US slogans such as “Down with Bush, down with America”.

The demonstration was led by key Shia leader Aga Syed Hassan, who is a member of the region’s moderate alliance.

Mr Hassan later presented a memorandum to UN officials addressed to Secretary General Kofi Annan urging him to hand out “exemplary punishment to those who desecrate holy shrines.”

Mr Hassan denounced Wednesday’s attack as “barbaric.” The bombing destroyed the gilded dome of the Shias’ 1,000-year-old Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum in Samarra.

No one has claimed responsibility, although the US suspects Sunni extremists allied to Al Qaeda were behind the bombing that triggered reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques in Baghdad.

—AFP