SRINAGAR: Thousands of Indian troops fanned out across India-held Kashmir on Sunday, detaining about 200 activists to prevent protests during a three-day strike to mark the execution anniversaries of two separatists in New Delhi, officials said.
Many parts of the region were under curfew with major roads blocked by razor wire and barricades as authorities sought to prevent anti-India protests and possible violence, Inspector General Abdul Gani Mir said. Wireless internet services were shut down.
Shops and businesses remained closed in Srinagar. Most people stayed indoors while police and paramilitary soldiers patrolled the lakeside city’s deserted streets.
Authorities detained about 200 known activists and placed their leaders under house arrest, a police officer said.
Still, a few dozen pro-independence activists tried to stage a rally in central Srinagar. Authorities took them to a police station where they were kept for several hours, another police officer said.
Minor clashes broke out in at least nine other locations across the region, as law-enforcement officers tried to stop small groups of people from holding demonstrations. No injuries were reported.
Kashmiri separatists, who have long demanded the region be given independence or be allowed to merge with Pakistan, were incensed last year when Mohammed Afzal Guru was secretly hanged on Feb 9 in a New Delhi jail for his alleged involvement in a parliament attack that killed 14 people, including five gunmen.
Most people believe Guru was not given a fair trial, and the covert execution led to days of violent anti-India protests in the region, where anti-India sentiment runs deep.
Guru’s execution refreshed anger sparked in 1984, when Mohammed Maqbool Butt, a founding leader of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, was hanged in the same Delhi jail after being convicted of killing an intelligence officer.
Kashmiris renewed demands over the weekend that Guru’s and Butt’s remains, buried within the jail compound, be returned to the region for burial.
“The shutdown is called for pressing our demand for return of the mortal remains of our martyrs,” separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani said in a statement issued before he was detained at Srinagar’s airport on Saturday on his return from New Delhi.
JKLF leader Yasin Malik was detained when he and a few dozen supporters tried to stage a protest near the main square in Srinagar, police said.—AP/AFP
