Amarnath land row

Srinagar: Indefinite curfew was imposed in all 10 districts of the Kashmir Valley early on Sunday and several separatist leaders were placed under house arrest in a bid to disallow a march to the city centre on Monday. Additional police and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were moved in late on Saturday and all major cities and towns have been sealed off, officials said.

In the state's summer capital Srinagar, CRPF and police contingents were first deployed in the old city area, where agitating mobs have destroyed paramilitary pickets and bunkers in the last 10 days. "We have sufficient strength of CRPF to assist the local police, but we are bringing in additional reinforcements," a senior police officer.

Separatist leaders including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Shabir Ahmad Shah and Muhammad Yasin Malik have been placed under house arrest, official sources said. And, unlike such restrictions in the past, no visitors would be allowed to their houses, the sources added. After a massive show of strength on Friday in which tens of thousands of Kashmiris marched to the Eidgah lawns to offer prayers, separatist leaders had called for a march to the city centre Lal Chowk on Monday.

According to reports reaching from south Kashmir's Anantnag, Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama districts, the administration has given strict instructions to ensure that violators of the prohibitory orders are dealt strictly. Curfew was also clamped in the central district of Badgam, and Baramulla, Ganderbal, Kupwara and Bandipora districts in the north.

Barring a three-day spell of normalcy, life remained out of gear in the valley for the past fortnight with the protests and violence spearheaded by the separatists. The present agitation began against the allotment of 40 hectares of forest land to the Hindu shrine board that manages the affairs of the two-month long annual pilgrimage to the Himalayan cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir's Anantnag district.

The "economic blockade" of the Jammu-Srinagar highway and the heavy losses incurred by the local fruit industry have catapulted the earlier protests into a full fledged secessionist campaign with tens of thousands of locals responding to the calls of separatist leaders. (IANS)