The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Jammu

Indian soldiers were patrolling the streets in two districts of Kashmir Saturday after protesters clashed with police in a row over transfer of land in the Muslim region to Hindus.

The army was deployed after more than two dozen people were injured as angry demonstrators attacked government buildings and torched a police post late Friday in Jammu, the Hindu-majority winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir state.

Protesters and the local media said two people were killed in police firing, but police attributed the deaths to "gang rivalry".

"The army conducted a flag march in sensitive areas of Jammu city and Samba town and made announcements from public address system asking people to stay indoors," defence spokesman S.D Goswami said.

The Kashmir government's decision to provide land to a Hindu trust had sparked more than a week of rioting by furious Muslims, leaving six dead and hundreds injured.

The government went back on the decision to allocate land to Hindu pilgrims, sparking the current protests in Hindu areas of the state. The state government collapsed last month after its main ally withdrew support over the issue.

Meanwhile, Police opened fire Friday on hundreds of rioting Hindus, angry over a recent government decision to not transfer land to a shrine in Indian Kashmir, police said. Two people were killed.

The two protesters died in a hospital in Jammu city after sustaining bullet injuries during the protest, said Ramesh Kumar, a police officer. Four people were also wounded and were in serious condition, he said.

Last month, the government in Jammu, India's only Muslim-majority state, decided to award about 100 acres of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust that maintains the Amarnath shrine, a revered Hindu site.

The state government was forced to revoke that order after a week of often violent protests, in which six people were killed and hundreds wounded, by Muslim Kashmiris who denounced the move as an attempt to build Hindu settlements in the area and alter the demographics in the state.

But the cancellation set off protests by Hindus on Friday.

Kumar said police fired into the crowd after they were besieged by rock-throwing, angry protesters at Samba, a town on the outskirts of Jammu city. At least five policemen were also wounded during the clashes.