Indian police opened fire Wednesday on Muslim demonstrators in a Kashmir town, killing four people and wounding 30 as leaders of India's main political parties debated how to end months of separatist protests in the region.
The new clashes came two days after 18 protesters and a police officer were killed in street battles — the worst outbreak of violence in Kashmir in months of anti-India unrest this year.
In response to those protests, which were exacerbated by reports of a Qur'an desecration in the United States, authorities slapped a round-the-clock curfew across Indian-controlled Kashmir and threatened to shoot violators on sight.
The Qur'an issue resurfaced Wednesday, when thousands of protesters assembled close to a Christian school in the town of Mendhar, 180 kilometres southwest of Srinagar, Indian Kashmir's main city, chanting "Down with Qur'an desecrators" and "We want freedom."
Police fired tear gas and swung batons as the protesters tried to enter the school and used live ammunition when the crowd refused to disperse, a police officer said. At least four protesters were killed and 30 others wounded, six of them critically, he said.
Angered by the deaths, hundreds of people arrived from neighbouring villages and torched a court complex, a post office, a police headquarters and other government buildings, the officer said.
Meanwhile, protesters defying the curfew in Srinagar were met with tear gas, and separatists burned two government vehicles in the southern town of Shopian, the officer said.
PM calls for 'dialogue and discussion'
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gathered the country's top political leaders Wednesday to appeal for new ideas for dealing with the protests.
Speaking at the start of the meeting, Singh accused separatist groups of orchestrating some of the violent protests. He appealed for calm in the region and said the government was willing to talk to any group that did not espouse violence.
"I have said this earlier and I say it again: The only path for lasting peace and prosperity in Jammu and Kashmir is that of dialogue and discussion," he said.
The meeting, which lasted more than four hours, ended with an agreement to send a delegation to Kashmir to hear opinions from all sides, according to a statement released afterward. The government will take the delegation's report, as well as the opinions expressed in the meeting, into account when it determines what to do in the region, it said.
Separatist leaders dismissed the gathering as a public relations ploy.
"The meeting is a cosmetic and halfhearted measure," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. "Our focus continues to be on the bigger issue of resolving the Kashmir dispute."
Since 1989, a violent, separatist insurgency and the ensuing crackdown by Indian forces have killed an estimated 68,000 people. While that rebellion has been largely suppressed, public opposition to Indian rule remains deep, and the region remains heavily militarized with hundreds of thousands of troops, checkpoints along main roads, and harsh emergency laws still in force, creating further friction with the restive population.
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