In a rare show of support for separatist guerrillas, more than 6,000 people marched in the streets of Indian Kashmir yesterday mourning the death of rebels killed during a mosque siege.
Authorities said it was the first time in many months that so many people turned out for a funeral, held a day after Indian soldiers killed five militants holed up in the mosque.
Security forces do not normally release dead militants to relatives as the authorities prefer to bury them, but police handed over the bodies to avoid conflict after hundreds of villagers gathered to demand their return.
"They gave their precious lives and achieved martyrdom for a better future for us, they are our heroes," said Mr Mohammad Rajab (65), a resident of Khellen.
Khellen is in the district of Pulwama, about 30 miles (45 km) south of Srinagar, where Muslim separatist guerrillas have been waging a bloody battle against Indian rule since 1989.
Women and children wailed and beat their chests as the bodies were laid out in a paddy field surrounded by huge crimson-leaved chinar and poplar trees.
More than 6,000 mourners chanted "We want freedom", "Allah-ho-Akbar" (God is great) and "Indian forces, go back", as they marched behind pall bearers carrying the bodies.
Police said three of the dead rebels were Pakistani nationals who belonged to the outlawed Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The other two were Kashmiri members of Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest militant outfit in the disputed region.
But the five militants were known to be operating in the area for the last six years and there was a lot of sympathy for them, a Pulwama police officer told Reuters.
He said hundreds of villagers gathered outside the local police station on Thursday demanding the bodies be handed over to them. Police gave in to their demands to avoid any trouble.
Indian authorities say rebel violence abated in the Himalayan region this year with fewer militants crossing over from Pakistan.
The decline coincides with a peace process launched by India and Pakistan in 2003 to resolve a wide range of disputes, including Kashmir, which lies at the heart of half a century of enmity between the South Asian neighbours.
Police in Jammu-Kashmir yesterday said that 1,716 civilians, members of security forces and militants had died there in fighting in the first 10 months of this year, some 13 per cent fewer than in 2003. The number of civilian deaths dropped 46 per cent.
The new figures raised the estimated death toll in 14 years of insurgency and counterattacks to at least 66,000, most of them Muslim civilians. About a dozen militant groups have been fighting since December 1989 to merge the Indian-controlled part of the Indian region with neighbouring Pakistan, or win its independence. -(Reuters)