A Kashmiri woman pleads with Indian paramilitary soldiers to let her cross a temporary checkpoint during curfew in Srinagar
India’s prime minister called an emergency meeting yesterday over escalating anti-India protests in Kashmir, where at least 28 people have died in clashes and hospitals are struggling with hundreds of injured.
The protests erupted over the weekend after Indian troops killed the popular, young leader of the largest rebel group in the region beset by an insurgency since the 1990s.
Defying curfews and paramilitary troops and riot police on patrol, crowds of youths threw stones at law enforcement officers and rallied in the main city of Srinagar and other places around the region. Separatist politicians, most of them under house arrest, extended a call for a general strike through Wednesday.
Police said yesterday the death toll from the street violence had reached 28, after three young men died overnight. Most were teens and young men.
Doctors and government officials said they were struggling with a medical emergency after hundreds of civilians were admitted to hospitals with bullet and pellet wounds. At least 100 troops have been injured.
Amid reported scuffles between law enforcement and hospital staff, many injured protesters said they were beaten up by police and paramilitary soldiers while on the way to hospitals. Authorities appealed for calm and said they would investigate the complaints.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, having just returned from a four-nation tour in Africa, called a high-level government meeting to discuss how to calm the region and restore peace. Indian authorities had said Monday they sent at least 2,000 more law enforcement troops to the mountainous region, where hundreds of thousands already are deployed permanently.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also expressed concern about the violence. A statement said Ban “calls on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further violence and hopes that all concerns would be addressed through peaceful means”.
Indian officials lifted a suspension on an annual Hindu pilgrimage to a mountain cave that draws about half a million people each year, and asked that law enforcement ensure the security of the pilgrimage. Kashmir is about 70 percent Muslim. Aijaz Hussain, Srinagar, AP
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