After a brief respite from trying living conditions created by weeks of official curfews and other restrictions and separatist-sponsored strikes witnessed on Saturday, the situation on the ground was

Curfew and security restrictions were re-imposed on Srinagar and most other towns of the Kashmir Valley on Friday to holdback pro-freedom rallies and street protests called by the separatists. However, at places slogan chanting crowds defied the restrictions and consequently clashed with the police and the CRPF. Nearly 50 persons were injured including a station house officer and 19 other policemen, the police and hospital sources said.

On a day when talks between external affairs minister S.M. Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad were seeing a “constructive candour,” thousands of Kashmiris squatted on the streets of Srinagar and some other parts of the Valley to ask for freedom.

As Kashmir Martyrs’ Day passed off peacefully on Tuesday, the Omar Abdullah government has been relieved of some of the strains set off by the recent turbulence and may now proceed with the option of asking the Army to return to barracks.

A delegation of Jammu and Kashmir’s mainstream political parties will soon meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seek an inclusive political package as a major enterprise to address the issues in the state.

People’s Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday threw a spanner in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s first attempt to intervene in the Kashmir crisis by rejecting his appeal to attend Monda

Curfew was imposed again in parts of the Kashmir Valley including Baramulla, Pulwama and Anantnag and in Srinagar’s Maisuma area after surging crowds chanting pro-freedom slogans returned to streets on Saturday.

Curfew was reimposed in parts of the Kashmir Valley, including Baramulla, Pulwama and Anantnag towns and in Srinagar’s Maisuma area, after crowds chanting separatist slogans returned to the streets and stone-pelting youths clashed with the police at some places on Saturday.

After remaining indoors for about 76 hours, the people in predominantly Muslim Kashmir Valley cities and towns thronged mosques and other places of worship on Friday evening to offer congregational prayers to mark Meraj al-Aalam, Prophet Muhammad’s ascension to the Heaven.

The Army staged flag marches in Srinagar for the second straight day Thursday as stringent curfew continued. There have, however, been no major new incidents of violence since Tuesday, when Kashmir’s summer capital erupted after the killing of four persons in police and CRPF firings and beating.