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SRINAGAR, Aug 7: Security forces fired teargas and used batons on Thursday against hundreds of angry people were protesting over assaults in occupied Kashmir, police said.
Chanting “we want freedom” and “Indian forces leave Kashmir,” the protesters hurled rocks at police and paramilitary soldiers at several places in Srinagar, said Prabhakar Tripathi, a spokesman for the Central Reserve Police Force.
The Muslims say they are being targeted in Jammu with Hindu mobs attacking their shops and homes and chanting slogans demanding Muslims leave the area. They say security forces are not doing enough to protect them.
Shops, businesses and schools remained closed in protest for a third day in Srinagar, a Muslim-majority city.
Yasin Malik, the head of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front who has been on a hunger strike for the last three days to protest the attacks on Muslims, was rushed to hospital on Thursday when his blood pressure dropped, said Mohammed Altaf, the group’s spokesman.
His condition could be life-threatening if he does not start eating soon, said Khurshid Iqbal, a doctor who is treating him. “He may go into a renal shutdown,” he said.
Malik, however, is continuing to refuse food, saying he will fast until Muslims are secure.
Anger between Hindus and Muslims in the region has flared since June when the authorities decided to award 99 acres of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust that maintains the Amarnath shrine.
The government was forced to revoke the land transfer last month after a week of violent protests by Muslims who called the move an attempt to build Hindu settlements in the area and alter the demographics in Kashmir.
However, the reversal of the decision triggered streets protests by Hindus in Jammu and Samba area.
The violence has escalated over the past two weeks and so far six people have been killed in the new clashes.
The casualties include a Muslim man who was killed when a teargas shell hit him while he was protesting the alleged attacks on Muslims in Srinagar.
On Thursday, hundreds of Hindu protesters defied a curfew in the Jammu region and took to the streets, said Ramesh Kumar, a police officer.
More troops
In Jammu and surrounding areas, authorities deployed more troops to prevent attacks on Muslims, a police officer said, asking not to be named.
A curfew imposed over the weekend was relaxed for a few hours to allow residents to shop for supplies.
Meanwhile, government forces found an improvised explosive device weighing nearly 80 kilograms on the road leading to the airport in Srinagar early Thursday and defused it, Tripathi said.—Agencies
