SRINAGAR, INDIA, August 18, 2004: Tens of thousands of Muslims waving green and black protest flags planned to march through Indian Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar. They intended to reach the U.N. offices demanding freedom from India. Security measures prevented them from reaching the U.N. offices, but demonstrators tore down barbed wire barricades that authorities had erected on roads and chanted “Down with India.”
Masarat Aalam, a prominent separatist, said leaders would deliver a petition citing human rights violations by Indian authorities and requesting intervention.
The crowd shouted violent slogans such as “It is your death, India.”
The crisis began in June with a dispute over land near the Amarnath temple. Muslims held protests complaining that a state government plan to transfer 99 acres (40 hectares) to the Amarnath temple trust to build facilities for pilgrims near the shrine was actually a settlement plan meant to alter the religious balance in the region.
Organizers said the protest was the largest against Indian rule since unrest sharply escalated two months ago. Much of the Kashmir valley remained paralysed last week by a shutdown called by separatist groups. At least 34 people, both Muslims and Hindus, have been killed in Indian-administered Kashmir. The unrest has pitted Muslims against the region’s Hindu minority.