SRINAGAR, July 31 (2009): The chief minister of India's Jammu and Kashmir state, who quit over allegations of involvement in a sex scandal, resumed office on Friday after the state governor rejected his resignation, officials said. The scandal, in which girls, some of them minors, were said to be supplied to politicians, bureaucrats and police officers sparked weeks of violent protests across the Himalayan region in 2006 after it was uncovered. Omar Abdullah resigned on Tuesday shortly after a leader of the main...

SRINAGAR, Aug 13 (2009): A spurt in violence in Kashmir shows militants may have abandoned a strategy of backing peaceful street protests to fight Indian rule, raising fears of sucking in Indian and Pakistani troops to their tense border. Separatists groups hoped that months of street protests last year could galvanise into a massive anti-India movement, but the demonstrations petered out and New Delhi carried out two rounds of peaceful elections in the state, despite boycott calls. "The militant groups do not want...

SRINAGAR, July 28 (2009): The chief minister of India's Jammu and Kashmir state, Omar Abdullah, resigned on Tuesday after an opposition lawmaker accused him of involvement in a sex scandal. An angry Abdullah denied the allegation but said he couldn't continue in office until the issue was resolved. The scandal, in which girls, some of them minors, were said to be supplied to politicians, bureaucrats, police officials, sparked weeks of violent protests across the Himalayan region in 2006 after it was uncovered. "I...

SRINAGAR, July. 23 (2009): A three-year-old boy and his father were shot dead by suspected guerrillas in a south Kashmir village, police said Thursday. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has condemned the murder and challenged the separatists' silence over it. The incident occurred Wednesday night in south Kashmir Shopian district that has been on the boil since May 30 after the rape and murder of two women allegedly by security forces. A police spokesman said guerrillas barged into the house of Mohammed Aslam Awan, 30,...

SRINAGAR, July 16 (2009): Four police officers were arrested in Kashmir after being accused of destroying evidence in the rape and murder of two women that triggered weeks of anti-India protests, officials said on Thursday. Witnesses said the arrests ended a 47-day protest strike on Thursday in the southern Kashmiri town of Shopian, where the bodies of the two Muslim women were found on May 29. Locals say the women, aged 17 and 22, were abducted, raped and killed by security forces. A judicial probe, the findings of...

SRINAGAR, July 13 (2009):Troops sealed off residential areas across the Kashmir valley on Monday and thwarted a march planned by thousands of separatists to honour "martyrs", an annual event that turns violent every year. The All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, the region's main separatist alliance, planned the march to mark the anniversary of July 13, 1931, when police shot dead dozens of demonstrators protesting against a then Hindu ruler of the state. Police said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of Hurriyat,...

SRINAGAR, July 8 (2009):Police fired in the air and used tear gas on Wednesday to disperse hundreds of demonstrators protesting a student's death in Kashmir's main city, officials said. Angry residents burned tyres, threw stones, set a police vehicle on fire and forced businesses in the heart of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, to close. The protesters accused police of killing 20-year-old man after his arrest. Police denied the charge and said the man was killed by unidentified criminals. He went missing last week...