Waving green and black protest flags and chanting militant slogans, tens of thousands of Muslims marched to the United Nations offices in Indian Kashmir's main city here Monday to press their demands that India give up its claim to the region. The organizers of the march, Kashmir's main separatist All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference alliance, handed over a petition against Indian rule. A row over land allocated to Hindu pilgrims visiting a shrine in Kashmir has snowballed into full scale anti-India protests, uniting separatists and reviving calls for Kashmiri independence. The weeks of unrest, which have left at least 34 people dead, have also unleashed pent-up tensions between Kashmir's Muslims and Hindu minority, sparking fears that the troubles could spread to the rest of India. While the latest unrest has been led by Kashmir's peaceful separatist groups, thousands of protesters Monday chanted the name of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, one of the most violent Muslim militant groups fighting to wrest the predominantly Muslim region from Hindu-majority India. “Lashkar has arrived. It is your death, India. Lashkar has come,” the crowd chanted as they passed Indian security forces. Apart from its activities in Kashmir, the Pakistan-based group also has been blamed for deadly terror bombings across India in recent years. On Monday, police and paramilitary forces turned out in full force to guard the streets. No violence was reported in Srinagar. The crowd tore down a barbed wire fence to reach the UN office. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a prominent leader, told the crowd to demand “the UN, the US, Britain and international community to come and see what people want here.” “This is a struggle for right to self-determination,” he said. “The UN should send its peacekeepers to Jammu as well as Kashmir.” Jammu is the region's only Hindu-majority city. The crisis in Kashmir has turned into perhaps the biggest challenge Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has faced since taking office in 2004, and on Monday he again called for calm. “All political parties, all right-thinking people must work together to bring the situation under control,” Singh told reporters outside Parliament in New Delhi. Jammu also saw more protests Monday as thousands of people defied a ban on public gatherings and gathered in large groups hoping to court arrest. One of the organizers, Suchet Singh, said such gatherings would go on for three days and that more than 100,000 people were expected to take part.
