The half- lifting on Monday of a 52-day curfew imposed by the Indian authorities in Kashmir has reignited simmering tensions and led to renewed clashes in its capital Srinagar and in many areas of the region which is seeing one of its most violent crises in years. Residents chanted "We want freedom" and "Go India, go back" as they again hurled stones at security forces who responded with tear gas.
Some 68 people have died and 10,000 been injured in clashes between independence supporters and security forces in the wake of the killing of a popular young militant separatist, Burhan Wani, a commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen group. Indian officials claim Wani was instrumental in persuading local boys to take up arms.
India has flooded even more security forces into a region that is already home to 500,000 soldiers, but the anger of demonstrators has only been fuelled by troops’ apparently indiscriminate use of pellet guns and the resulting proliferation of serious eye injuries, including among many children. This year, the use of pellets increased sharply, with the police firing more than 3,000 canisters, or upward of 1.2 million pellets, in the first 32 days of the protests.
India, which insists Kashmir is an integral and indivisible part of it, blames Pakistani-based agitators for the trouble in the province, a former Himalayan kingdom. The two countries have fought three conflicts over the Muslim-majority region, which Pakistan believes should have been included inside its territory when the subcontinent became independent from Britain in 1947 – 44,000 civilians, insurgents and troops have been killed since a separatist insurgency started in 1988.
Recent tensions have undermined tentative attempts by both India and Pakistan to improve relations. On August 15th Islamabad invited India to join in fresh bilateral talks. The offer was rejected with Delhi saying it would only discuss cross-border terrorism, while Pakistan has come under pressure from visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry to end support for Kashmiri militants.