Indian security forces kill two in Kashmir

Female Indian police troopers stop an elderly Kashmiri cyclist during a curfew in Srinagar yesterday. Indian police used teargas and gunfire to disperse hundreds of protesters in Kashmir on August 26, as the death toll among defiant demonstrators rose to five, officials said. Officers said they also used batons as protesters broke a curfew and gathered in southern Achabal village a day after four people were killed in police shootings and over 100 injured in clashes as the restrictions were floutedPhoto: AFP

Indian security forces opened fire yesterday on Muslim protesters demanding the end of New Delhi's rule in Kashmir, killing two people, officials said.
"The security forces had to fire when protesters hurled stones and defied a curfew in Handwara," a police spokesman said of the first death.
He said in the ensuing clashes five security personnel were injured.
Another Muslim man was killed in central Budgam district when protesters also targeted security forces with stones, police said.
India is facing some of the biggest pro-freedom demonstrations since the eruption of insurgency against its rule in the region in 1989.
Meanwhile police also traded fire yesterday with militants allegedly holding six people hostage, including four children, in a building in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The militants killed at least three people since they illegally crossed into Indian Kashmir from Pakistan early Tuesday, said senior police official K. Rajendra. As many as four hostage-takers were hiding inside the building in a crowded area on the outskirts of Jammu.
Police killed at least one of the rebels, Rajendra said.
Authorities have been on guard for Muslim guerrillas looking to strike to exploit the unrest that has roiled Jammu, a primarily Hindu city in the Muslim-majority state, along with the rest of Kashmir since June.
A series of massive protests unleashed pent-up tensions between Kashmir's Muslims and Hindus and has threatened to snap the bonds between India and its only Muslim-majority state.
Kashmir's crisis began in June when Muslims launched protests complaining that a government decision to transfer land to a Hindu shrine in Kashmir was actually a settlement plan meant to alter the religious balance in the region. After the plan was rescinded, Hindus took to the streets of Jammu demanding it be restored.
Kashmir has been divided between Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan since 1947 when the two fought their first war over the region in the aftermath of Britain's bloody partition of the subcontinent. Both countries continue to claim Kashmir in its entirety.