Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Wednesday appealed to people in Kashmir not to indulge in rock-throwing or acts of arson asserting, “It harms our otherwise just cause.”

In a significant development which may cause embarrassment to Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and his allies from the Congress party, a delegation of about fifty state Congress leaders and activists have met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and some other senior ministers and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi to demand dismissal of the Omar Abdullah government and imposition of Governor’s rule “to save the state from further ruin.”

At least one person was killed when the CRPF opened fire at Bemina in Srinagar on Wednesday evening, raising the toll in the past six days to 29.
Witnesses alleged that the CRPF jawans shot 30-year-old Muhammad Yakub from point blank range. “There were no protests or violence going on in the area. The C

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday chaired a high-level meeting to review the supplies of medicine, baby food and other essential items and directed the ministry concerned to make them available to the people in curfew-bound areas.

At least four more protesters were killed and over a dozen others injured in firing by the security forces across the Kashmir Valley on Tuesday, while a youth injured earlier in shooting at Krew township died in a Srinagar hospital. With this, the death toll has risen to 27 in the past five days.

The Omar Abdullah government has, during the past two days, reached out to several Kashmiri separatist leaders with the plea that it was ready to seek resolution of the issues through talks with them if they help in restoring peace in the Valley.

Curfew remained clamped in the violence-hit Kashmir Valley on Wednesday with security forces keeping a tight vigil to maintain law and order.

In spite of the Kashmir Valley being on the boil, the annual Amarnath pilgrimage goes on without interruption. However, the devotees who had travelled to the cave-temple, situated at an altitude of 12,729 feet, in the past few days, returned disappointed as the ice stalagmite that forms a natural Shivalingam has melted almost completely.

The Kashmir Valley experienced another day of mayhem on Monday with at least seven protesters gunned down by police and paramilitary personnel struggling to contain protests and mob violence which have spread to new areas.

As the anger against the police and other security forces has increased with the unrelenting bloodshed in the Kashmir Valley, reports pouring in here from different parts of the restive region suggest that at least local policemen operating from area police stations and posts are trying to buy peace with the home populations.