SRINAGAR, Feb 2 (2002): Scores of public telephone office owners took to the streets in Kashmir’s main city on Saturday to protest against the withdrawal of long-distance telephone services, witnesses said.
Indian authorities last month stopped long-distance calling from at least 2,500 public telephone offices and withdrew Internet access in Kashmir to prevent separatist militants from communicating with each other.
More than 200 public telephone office owners assembled near Partap Park in central Srinagar on Saturday afternoon, shouting anti-government slogans and waving banners saying: “We want justice”.
A police official said the protest was peaceful.
Srinagar is the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, where state-owned telecommunications giant Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is the only provider of telephone and Internet services.
Long-distance phone connections for individual subscribers, organisations and offices have not been affected.
India is fighting a 12-year old separatist rebellion in its part of disputed Kashmir region and accuses Pakistan of fomenting the violence by arming and sending them across the border.
Islamabad says it only gives moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people’s self determination.
The attack on Indian parliament in December, for which New Delhi accused two Pakistan-based militant groups, has led to a massive military buildup along the border of the nuclear-armed neighbours.
Authorities say more than 33,000 people have been killed in the region since a bloody rebellion broke out at the end of 1989. Separatist put the toll closer to 80,000.
