Muslims call for autonomy

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By Aijaz Hussain ASSOCIATED PRESS

SRINAGAR, India | Thousands of Muslims poured into the streets of Kashmir on Thursday, demanding independence from India hours after archrival Pakistan called on the United Nations to stop what it characterized as gross human rights violations in the divided Himalayan region.

Pakistan's statement drew a sharp rebuke from India, which called the comments “deeply objectionable.”

More than six weeks of unrest in India's part of Kashmir have pitted the region's Muslim majority against its Hindu minority and left at least 34 people dead, many of them protesters shot during violent clashes with police and soldiers. Villages have been attacked, police stations torched, and in at least one town, security forces have been ordered to shoot on sight any protesters violating a curfew.

The latest death came Thursday when police opened fire on protesters in Srinagar, Kashmir's main city, killing at least one and wounding three others, police and hospital officials said.

The trouble was grown out of a dispute over a government plan to transfer land to a Hindu shrine in Kashmir.

Another man, a Hindu, committed suicide Thursday in Jammu, Kashmir's only Hindu-majority city, to protest the scrapping of the land transfer. He was the second Hindu to kill himself in protest.

The spiraling unrest has unleashed pent up tensions between Kashmir's Muslims and Hindus and threatened to snap the bonds between India and its only Muslim-majority state. There are also growing fears that the violence could drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims in other parts of India, where Hindu nationalist political parties have been organizing rival protests and calling for the government to give the land back to the shrine.

The latest protests, which began overnight in Srinagar and continued Thursday, were sparked by a rumor that security forces were breaking into houses and beating up women and children.

“This is a question of our honor, come out of your homes,” said announcements played over the public-address systems at various mosques in Srinagar.

People in Srinagar - a mountain town once famed for its cool summer weather and the houseboats that ply the lake in its center - responded by the thousands, pouring into the streets and chanting “Long Live Pakistan” and “We Want Independence. “

Perhaps more than anything seen in the past six weeks, those sentiments are most worrying to India.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1948 and is at the center of their six-decade rivalry.

There is also a long history of separatist movements in New Delhi's part of the region. Most were peaceful until 1989 when a bloody Islamic insurgency began. The insurgents want to see India's part of the region merged with Pakistan or given independence. The rebellion has so far killed an estimated 68,000 people.