SRINAGAR, Aug 6: Yasin Malik, the chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, has gone on a fast unto death in protest against the “sectarian forces in Jammu who are hell-bent upon annihilating Muslims,” according to a press release.

Violent demonstrations by occupied state’s Hindu community have rocked Jammu, with Muslims complaining of the government’s “failure to rein in fanatics in Jammu”.

The Hindus have launched a campaign against the Srinagar government over its refusal to grant land for a Hindu trust.

“My fast unto death is a mark of peaceful resistance against the communal forces who harass Muslims in Jammu. It is a mark of solidarity with Muslim brothers in Jammu,” Yasin Malik said while talking to media outside his party’s headquarters on Tuesday.

Mr Malik accused New Delhi of “deliberately allowing the situation to turn communal” in Jammu region.

“Activists are being brought from Rajasthan and Gujarat to fan communalism and spread poison against Muslims,” the JKLF chief alleged.

On Wednesday, a protester was shot dead in an army firing in occupied Kashmir as Indian Premier Manmohan Singh held talks with the nation’s political parties in a bid to defuse tensions in the region.

The Hindu protester died when the army opened fire to quell violent demonstrators who defied a curfew and blocked a highway in a bid to impose an economic blockade on the mainly Muslim Kashmir valley, police said.

A strike called by pro-Pakistan forces opposed to the Hindu land deal paralysed northern Muslim areas of the region on Wednesday.

Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Geelani, who called the strike, warned authorities not to “please (Hindu) fanatics” by transferring land to the Hindu shrine.

Officials said political parties had decided at talks in New Delhi to send representatives to the valley to assess the situation.

“A dialogue process will start with all parties concerned, including the various parties who are participating in the agitation,” Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.—Agencies