SRINAGAR, Feb 5 (1996) – Militant Moslem separatists and political parties imposed a general strike Monday to demand an end to New Delhi’s rule in Kashmir and support a similar shutdown in Pakistan controlled Kashmir.
Witnesses and officials said the one-day strike in the state summer capital of Srinigar and across the Himalayan valley, closed offices, banks, schools and colleges. Streets were also empty.
Heavily-armed federal troops stepped up security and patrolled streets in military trucks to prevent anti-government violence, witnesses said.
The all-party Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella group of 30 Kashmiri rebel and political organisations, said it called the strike on Monday in solidarity with the similar shutdown ordered by Islamabad across Pakistan.
Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto enforced the country-wide strike on Monday and declared February 5 a national holiday in an open expression of solidarity with the people in Indian-administered Kashmir.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the Moslem militants of Kashmir, which borders Pakistan.
Islamabad, which holds one-third of the divided Himalayan state, denies the charge but extends moral and diplomatic support to what it describes as the Kashmiris’ legitimate struggle for self-determination.
More than 12,000 people have died in Kashmir, India’s only Moslem-majority state, since 1989 when Moslem separatists stepped up the anti-Indian rebellion.
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over Kashmir. Western nations have voiced fears that the dispute could become the trigger of a nuclear conflict between the two rivals.
