By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
SRINAGAR, India – Anti-India protesters continued to defy government imposed, round-the-clock curfews. Indian troops continue to fight Kashmiri protesters in street battles that claimed 91 this summer and left hundreds wounded, in the deadliest day in what has been a summer of violence challenging Indian rule in the disputed territory.
Top separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, called for sit-ins outside Indian army garrisons across the Himalayan region of Kashmir. “Peaceful sit-ins should be held outside the army camps to remind the troopers that they should stop human rights violations and leave Kashmir,” according to reporters at his home in Srinagar on Thursday.
On the same day, nine militants were killed in gun battles with the Indian military in the small town of Tral and in the frontier of Gurez.
As reports of the Quran “desecration in the United States, angers intensified, with activists chanting ‘Down with America’ and burning an effigy of President Barack Obama in a rare anti-U.S. protest”.
The outbreak of Monday’s violence came as Indian officials discussed “whether to make goodwill gestures to try to ease tensions in the war-wracked region, which is divided between India and Pakistan and fully claimed by both”.
The violence Kashmir faces has been common since armed Kashmiri insurgency erupted against Indian rule in 1989, but with the recurrence of over a hundred deaths, reports confirm this summer’s violence the worst in a decade.
Since 1989, a violent, separatist insurgency and the ensuing crackdown by Indian forces have killed an estimated 68,000 people.
“The separatists are indeed misleading the ordinary masses and trying to create a wedge between the army and the people for its vested interests,” defense spokesman Lt. Col. J.S. Brar said at a news conference. “This is a deliberate attempt to embroil the army in the ongoing agitation and distract it from its primary role.”
Analysts see recent protests as the prevalent challenge to Indian rule in Kashmir for 20 years. Correspondents have agreed that sit-ins could pose unforeseen challenges to security forces struggling to restore order.
On Wednesday, “Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chaired an all-party meeting over continuing violence in Kashmir and the separatist leaders dismissed the gathering as a public relations ploy”.
In the past three summers, predominantly Muslim demonstrators have filled the streets, throwing stones and demanding “that the Himalayan region be given independence from Hindu-dominated India or be allowed to merge with predominantly Muslim Pakistan”.
A doctor at Srinagar’s main hospital is said to have received 25 or more wounded citizens with bullet wounds in recent weeks. He agreed to speak under strict conditions of anonymity because the government barred health officials from conversations with the press.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani said “lifting the security laws would not satisfy Kashmiris. ‘We want end to Indian occupation here and have already laid out our proposal for initiating a dialogue”.
For more information, please see:
CNN – Separatist leader calls for sit-ins at Indian posts across Kashmir – 16 September 2010
Huffington Post – Kashmir Protests Leave 15 Dead, 45 Wounded – 13 September 2010
BBC –Two die as Kashmiri protesters defy curfew – 17 September 2010
