September 21, 2008	Sunday	Ramazan 20, 1429

SRINAGAR, Sept 20: Shops and businesses remained shut and people were forced to stay indoors in occupied Kashmir’s main city on Saturday, as a strike called against India took hold, police said.

The one-day strike called by the Jammu-Kashmir Coordination Committee, a new alliance of separatists, representatives of businesses and lawyers, closed schools and colleges.

“Saturday’s strike is to demand the right to self-determination for the people of Kashmir,” top Kashmiri leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said.

Police and paramilitary soldiers patrolled the deserted streets in Srinagar, a city of 1.1 million people, which has recently witnessed frequent strikes and protests over religious issues, liberation causes or rights violations by Indian troops.

Indian troops fired teargas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters throwing rocks and chanting slogans against India in the Nowhatta area of Srinagar. Several people were injured in the clash, police said.

Hundreds of angry protesters spilled onto the streets to demand an end to occupation, said Prabhakar Tripathi, a spokesman for the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force.

Some protesters threw rocks at troops and the forces retaliated with teargas and rubber bullets, Tripathi said.

He said several protesters and troops were injured but was unable to say how many.

At least 37 protesters have been killed by Indian forces since last month in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, since fresh protests broke out. More than 1,000 people have been injured in clashes.

The protests were sparked by a government decision to grant land to build shelters for Hindu pilgrims travelling to occupied Kashmir, one of the world’s most militarised regions.

“Protest against Indian occupation peacefully,” a hardline leader of the independence movement, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, appealed to people in a statement.

“We are taking forward the unfulfilled mission of thousands of martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the noble cause of freedom,” the statement said.

The strike also shut down other major Kashmir towns, police officers said.—Agencies