(23 Oct 2008) SHOTLIST
1. Wide rear shot of policemen at near end of street, one firing tear gas shell, protesters at far end throwing stones at police
2. Various of protesters throwing stones towards police
3. Wide of protesters running for cover as tear gas shell explodes
4. Various of policemen firing tear gas shells towards protesters
5. Protesters running for cover, throwing stones
6. Wide of policemen throwing stones
7. Mid of police with shields
8. Policeman firing tear gas shell, group of police
9. Close up burning rubber tyre
10. Policeman firing tear gas shell round corner
11. Policemen running down street towards protesters
12. Close up burning rubber tyre, wide of street
13. Line of riot police with shields lining street
14. Group of policemen walking down street
STORYLINE
Dozens of demonstrators protesting the arrest of a prominent separatist leader and demanding an end to Indian rule in Kashmir clashed on Thursday with Indian government forces who fired tear gas to disperse them, police said.
In Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, Muslim protesters hurled rocks at police who responded with stone throwing and tear gas.
Yasin Malik, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) was arrested by the security forces earlier on Thursday.
Malik had launched his poll boycott campaign on Wednesday, urging the people to stay away from the elections for a new state government which are due to start on November 17.
The polls will be held in seven phases running through until December 24.
The violence-wracked Indian-controlled Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, has been without a local government since July when the Congress party-led coalition resigned, amid charges it mishandled the transfer of government land to a Hindu shrine, sparking massive protests.
The staggered polling process, in which districts will vote on different days, allows the government to deploy more security forces in each area in an attempt to prevent a repeat of violence during elections in 2002 in which dozens died.
Elections had been scheduled for October but were delayed because of the recent violence set off by the shrine controversy, which have seen some of the largest protests against Indian rule in two decades.
Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, where most people favour independence from mainly Hindu India or a merger with predominantly Muslim Pakistan.
At least 45 people have died in the unrest in recent months, most of them killed when Indian soldiers opened fire on Muslim demonstrators.
Militant separatist groups have been fighting Indian forces since 1989 to end Indian rule.
The uprising and subsequent Indian crackdown have killed about 68-thousand people, most of them civilians.
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since they were created in the bloody partition of the subcontinent at independence from Britain in 1947.
Relations improved after a peace process began in 2004, but have faltered recently.
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