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Kashmir Streets Remain Under Army Lockdown

   VOANews 08 July 2010
   Indian  Army  soldiers  patrol a deserted street in Srinagar, India, 8
   July 2010

Photo: AP

   Indian  Army  soldiers  patrol a deserted street in Srinagar, India, 8
   July 2010

   Tens of thousands of Indian soldiers continue to patrol the streets of
   Indian-controlled  Kashmir,  enforcing  a rigid curfew aimed at ending
   weeks of violent protests.
   The  Indian  government appealed Thursday for parents in the region to
   keep  their teenage sons indoors after the deaths of several young men
   involved in the anti-India demonstrations.
   Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said it is important that
   people do not come into the streets and start throwing stones. He said
   the Indian army will be in Kashmir as long as necessary.
   The Indian government deployed its army to the volatile region for the
   first  time in two decades Wednesday after weeks of protests killed at
   least 16 people.
   The  army joined police and paramilitary forces patrolling the city of
   Srinagar  and  surrounding  areas,  with troops erecting barricades to
   seal  off  neighborhoods.  Some demonstrators defied the strict curfew
   and briefly clashed with police who fired tear gas.
   Kashmir  is  divided  between India and Pakistan. Muslim insurgents in
   Indian  Kashmir  have  been  fighting for independence from India or a
   merger with Muslim-majority Pakistan for more than 20 years.
   The  two  nuclear-armed  neighbors  have  fought  two  wars  over  the
   Himalayan region.

   Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.

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