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SRINAGAR, INDIA–Tens of thousands of Muslims waving green and black flags and chanting slogans marched to UN offices in Indian Kashmir's main city yesterday to press demands for India to give up its claim to the region.
Hundreds of overflowing vehicles came from the Himalayan region for the protest in Srinagar that separatist leaders called the largest in two months of unrest.
Demonstrators tore down barbed-wire barricades erected on roads leading to the United Nations offices, chanting, "Down with India.''
Thousands of police and paramilitary forces in riot gear guarded the streets. No violence was reported.
Weeks of unrest that left at least 34 people dead have reinvigorated the separatist struggle of Kashmiris, seeking to sever India's hold on its only Muslim-majority state.
Kashmir's peaceful separatist groups led the recent unrest until yesterday, when thousands chanted for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, the violent Islamic group trying to wrest the region from Hindu-majority India. "Lashkar has arrived. It is your death, India," they chanted as they passed Indian security forces.
The petition given to UN officials alleges human rights violations by Indian officials and requests UN intervention, said bar association president Nazir Ahmed Ronga.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani told the crowd: "This is a struggle for right to self-determination. The UN should send its peacekeepers to Jammu as well as Kashmir." Jammu, the state's winter capital, is its only Hindu-majority city.
In Jammu, thousands of people defied a ban on public gatherings. Organizer Suchet Singh said such gatherings, by more than 100,000 people, would last three days.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed for calm from New Delhi, saying, "all right-thinking people must work together to bring the situation under control."
