Thousands of Muslims poured into the streets of Kashmir overnight, demanding independence from India hours after Pakistan called on the UN to stop what it characterized as gross human rights violations in the divided Himalayan region.
Pakistan’s statement drew a sharp rebuke from India yesterday, which called the comments “deeply objectionable.”
Nearly 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 33 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 protests were sparked by a plan to transfer land to a Hindu shrine in Kashmir, which was quickly abandoned.
But in the weeks since, the unrest has unleashed pent up tensions between Kashmir’s Muslims and Hindus, threatening 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 protests overnight in Srinagar, Kashmir’s main city, followed rumors that security forces were breaking into houses there 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.
The people of 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 last six weeks, it’s those sentiments that 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.
The insurgents want to see the part of the region that is controlled by India merged with Pakistan or given independence.
On Wednesday, the Pakistani foreign ministry called on the UN to step in and curb “the gross violation of human rights” in Kashmir.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf followed up a few hours later, saying: “I strongly condemn the human rights violation and the suppression on these oppressed people.”
India’s reaction was angry.
“To call for international involvement in the sovereign internal affairs of India is gratuitous, illegal and only reflects reversion to a mindset that has led to no good consequences for Pakistan in the past,” the foreign ministry said in a statement released soon after Musharraf’s remarks.
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