The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Srinagar

After weeks of massive separatist protests in Indian Kashmir that virtually shut down the region, Muslim leaders called Tuesday for three days of calm, allowing schools and businesses to reopen.

Huge crowds thronged to markets to buy food and cooking gas after two months of sustained protests in Srinagar, the biggest city in India's only Muslim-majority state.

Masarat Aalam, a prominent separatist leader, said the public needed a break to sustain the intensity of the protests, and the leaders needed time to map out future action. The unrest had crippled life in the city, with most schools and businesses complying with protest leaders' call for them to close.

Aalam said another strike and a large protest were planned for Friday. The recent unrest, which has left at least 34 people dead, has reinvigorated the region's decades-long separatist struggle. The protests represent the biggest challenge to Indian rule over its only Muslim-majority state since the start of a violent insurgency in 1989 that has killed an estimated 68,000 people.

The crisis began in June with a dispute over land near a Hindu shrine. Muslims held protests complaining that a state government plan to transfer 99 acres to a Hindu trust to build facilities for pilgrims near the shrine was actually a settlement plan meant to alter the religious balance in the region.