SRINAGAR, April 25: Police in occupied Kashmir’s main city fired tear gas on Friday to disperse several thousand demonstrators protesting against alleged human rights violations by Indian security forces.
The protest came hours after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began a two-day visit to the region, where tens of thousands of people have been killed since a revolt against New Delhi’s rule broke out in 1989.
The demonstration erupted weeks after the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), an independent group, said they discovered nearly a thousand unmarked graves in cemeteries in 18 villages close to the Line of Control.
More than 3,000 people led by Kashmir’s chief cleric, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, marched through streets of Srinagar, carrying banners reading: “Stop human rights violations.”
“We want freedom, long live Pakistan,” protesters shouted.
Half a dozen people were injured after police fired teargas shells at stone-throwing protestors.
Police said they later escorted Farooq, also chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, safely home and put him under house arrest.
“We ask Indians and the world community, whose graves are these? ... Human rights violations in Kashmir have increased and we will continue protest,” Farooq said in his Friday sermon before leading the protest demonstration.
Four other Hurriyat leaders were also placed under house arrest as a preventative measure earlier, said police officer Shabir Ahmed. “We are anticipating law and order problems,” he said.
The leaders had planned demonstrations — demanding an inquest into alleged human rights abuses in the troubled region — during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The APDP estimates up to 10,000 people have gone missing following their arrest by security forces during the nearly two-decade-old militancy in Kashmir, and says many of the missing could have ended up in these unmarked graves. Authorities in Kashmir have denied the allegations, saying such reports were intended to malign Indian security forces.
Amnesty International has appealed to Indian authorities to urgently investigate unmarked graves in north Kashmir.
—Agencies