July 02, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 27, 1429

SRINAGAR, July 1: Occupied Kashmir formally revoked on Tuesday a decision to hand over land to Hindu pilgrims after days of violent protests that left five dead and nearly 350 injured.

A 70-year-old man died in police action in the central Kashmir district of Budgam hours before the order was rescinded on Tuesday, police said.

Jubilant crowds of people set off crackers in Srinagar to welcome the news, but the government’s decision to revoke the plan angered Hindus concentrated in the southern part of the region.

There were angry clashes on Tuesday between police and Hindu demonstrators in the winter capital Jammu prompting authorities to impose a curfew in some areas, police said, adding protesters also set fire to a police booth.

The decision was taken by the state cabinet which met in Srinagar.

The government order “is hereby cancelled,” an official statement said.

The statement said the state government had taken charge of logistics for a major annual Hindu pilgrimage to a mountain grotto, scrapping a move to allocate land to a trust.

That decision provoked the riots in and around Srinagar.

Revocation of the order came as top separatists were placed under house arrest by police in a bid to avert more protests and a strike shut shops, schools, banks and post offices for a ninth day here.

The entire separatist political leadership was under house arrest, except for hardliner Syed Ali Geelani who managed to evade police, officer Pervez Ahmed said.

Geelani later emerged at the region’s main mosque in Srinagar and led tens of thousands of Muslims in an anti-India demonstration.

The protests had continued despite a weekend promise by Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad that his cabinet would scrap the plan to allow a Hindu trust to build accommodation for visitors to a Hindu shrine.—AFP