The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Srinagar

A massive pro-independence strike brought Indian Kashmir to a halt Saturday, a day after a huge separatist rally in the revolt-hit region where 15 people were killed in a border gunbattle.

The strike was the latest in a string of shutdowns and demonstrations called by separatists in the scenic Muslim-majority Himalayan region.

"The strike is part of continuing protests against India's rule in Kashmir," said leading separatist Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is chief priest at the region's main mosque.

"It is also to demand our right to self-determination through a referendum," he said in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir where a revolt has raged against New Delhi's rule since 1989. In Srinagar, shops, schools, banks and businesses remained closed for a second day running. There were similar shutdowns in other towns in the Kashmir valley.

The strike is set to continue until Monday, when separatists plan to hold a protest sit-in at Lal Chowk, the heart of Srinagar.

Meanwhile, the death toll from an overnight gunbattle with militants near the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan rose to 15, the army said.

"The fighting that is still raging has so far left 12 militants and three soldiers dead, including a colonel," army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Anil Kumar Mathur told AFP.

He said three soldiers were critically wounded during the gunbattle, the fiercest this year in Kashmir.

There has been a surge in skirmishes along the border in the past few months and New Delhi accuses Pakistan of arming, training and pushing militants into Kashmir to fight India's rule in the region-a charge Islamabad denies.

India says decades-old UN resolutions calling for a referendum on Kashmir's future are "obsolete."

On Friday, hundreds of thousands of people massed in Srinagar to demand "azadi" or freedom and to protest against New Delhi's rule in the second major demonstration this week.

Scattered demonstrations continued on Saturday across the city, with scores of protesters riding motorbikes and carrying green Islamic flags parading the eerily empty streets.

The trouble was triggered by a state government plan announced in June to donate land to a Hindu shrine trust in the Kashmir valley. The decision was later reversed, angering Hindus.

Since June, at least 31 Muslims and three Hindus have died in police firing on protesters and other violence in the Kashmir valley and mainly Hindu Jammu area.