August 06, 2008	Wednesday	Sha’aban 3, 1429

SRINAGAR, Aug 5: Protesters hurling bricks battled police in occupied Srinagar on Tuesday, as fury intensified over attacks on Muslims by Hindus.

Tensions were stoked by the death the day before of a Muslim protester who was hit by a police tear-gas shell in Srinagar.

Protesters blocked roads, set vehicles ablaze, and police used tear-gas shells and batons to disperse hundreds of protesters.

The attacks on Muslims in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region were triggered when the authorities reneged on a plan to transfer land to a Hindu shrine, plunging occupied Kashmir — already in the grip of an anti-India campaign — into new turmoil.

Jammu’s Muslims have alleged that many of their houses were set ablaze by Hindu rioters and said they were getting threats to leave the region.

“We’re living in constant fear,” says Shah Mohammad Chowdhary, a Muslim leader in Jammu, saying police had not interfered as “our homes were being torched”.

Police, however, reported only a “few arson incidents”. “We’re doing our best to restore order,” a police officer said, asking not to be named.

Two Hindu protesters were killed on Monday in the Jammu area in police firing after demonstrators attacked buses and cars.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi summoned an all-party meeting in New Delhi for Wednesday to discuss how to defuse tensions in occupied Kashmir.

Singh is keen to get assurances from the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party it will not fuel tensions in the region amid reports party activists were halting trucks carrying supplies for the Kashmir valley.—AFP