The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Srinagar

Troops carrying automatic rifles locked down Indian Kashmir's main city on Friday as separatists tried for a second day to hold a big rally against New Delhi's rule and upcoming elections in the disputed region.

Shops, businesses and schools remained closed across the Kashmir valley, the Muslim-majority region which in recent months has seen some of the biggest pro-independence protests since a separatist revolt against Indian rule erupted in 1989. Police and soldiers used loudspeakers in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, to warn residents to stay home and blocked off lanes with razor wire and iron barricades. Residents said it resembled an undeclared curfew.

Separatists had re-scheduled their anti-India rally in the 500-year-old Jamia Masjid, or Grand Mosque, on Friday, where they were to announce plans to boycott state elections beginning on Nov. 17. "This city has now become a prison, every second day they impose a curfew without announcing it," government employee Manzoor Ahmad Shah complained.

Life in Srinagar, a city of 1.1 million people dotted with lakes and ancient Sufi shrines, is frequently disrupted by strikes, protests and curfews over separatist causes.

The latest protests, sparked by a land row over a Hindu shrine trust in June, have embarrassed the Indian government. At least 42 people have been killed by security forces and more than 1,000 wounded.

"Indian forces cannot suppress our struggle by imposing undeclared curfews and by sealing off localities," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the region's main separatist alliance the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, said in a statement.

"I appeal to people to hold peaceful rallies and protests on the poll dates," said Farooq, who has been under house arrest since Wednesday.

Senior separatist leaders who participated in an earlier anti-election campaign were sent to jail under a tough security law that allows detention for up to two years without trial.

Hurriyat, which opposes the elections, says hundreds of its supporters and activists have been arrested ahead of the polls.

The protests come as overall levels of violence between Indian troops and separatist militants have declined greatly after India and Pakistan, which both claim the region in full and rule in part, began a sluggish peace process in 2004.