(26 Jun 2008) SHOTLIST
1. Wide protesters throwing stones UPSOUND: sirens
2. Protesters throwing stones
3. Wide of police in foreground as protesters throw stones
4. Mid of police crouching as stones are thrown
5. Protesters throwing stones
6. Police sheltering in front of shop
7. Police charge protesters, fire tear gas
8. Policeman firing tear gas
9. Mid of police running away from scene
10. Wide of protest
11. Various of protesters marching and chanting
12. Protester leading crowd in chants
13. Protesters approach with banner, police walk up to them
14. Mid of protesters
15. Protesters marching, carrying separatist leader Yasin Malik on shoulders
16. Various of policemen firing tear gas
STORYLINE
Tens of thousands of Kashmiris filled the streets for a fourth day of protests on Thursday, after police killings during earlier demonstrations enflamed anger over the transfer of land to a Hindu shrine in this Muslim-majority region.
Protesters clashed with riot police in several parts of Srinagar, the main city of Indian-controlled Kashmir.
They threw rocks at the officers who responded by firing live ammunition and tear gas into the air in an attempt to disperse the mobs, according to police.
More than 20-thousand people were protesting in towns across the Himalayan state, police said, and thousands of police and paramilitary soldiers were spread out to control the angry mobs.
The protesters included separatist leader, Yasin Malik, chairman of the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front.
No injuries were immediately reported.
Since Monday three people have been killed and dozens wounded as police try to quell the protests that erupted over the transfer of 99 acres (40 hectares) of land by the state government to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust running a popular Hindu shrine.
Protesters accuse the Indian government of planning to build Hindu settlements in India's only Muslim majority state to change the demographic balance in the region.
Across Kashmir, shops and offices were shut by strikes and public transport was kept off the roads by protesters who filled the streets, chanting "down with India" and "we want freedom."
The state government also cancelled ongoing school and college exams across the area, a government statement issued on Wednesday said.
The protests spread across the region despite an attempt on Wednesday by Ghulam Nabi Azad, the chief minister of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, to restore calm.
He promised that there would be no construction on the transferred land and pledged to meet members of all the political parties in the state to address the protesters' grievances.
The Amarnath shrine is a cave that houses a large icicle revered by Hindus as a symbol of Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration.
Hundreds of thousands of Hindus, who consider the cave sacred, are currently on an annual pilgrimage to visit the cave.
Thousands of soldiers have been deployed along the pilgrims' route.
In the past, Islamic separatists have targeted the pilgrimage, claiming that Hindu-majority India uses the annual religious event as a political statement to bolster its claim over the Himalayan region, which is divided between Pakistan and India but claimed by both.
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