Kashmir police use tear gas to break Eid protests

SRINAGAR, India (AFP) - Riot police in Kashmir used tear gas Monday to disperse hundreds of anti-India protesters on Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic festival marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Riot police in the summer capital Srinagar fired volleys of tear gas shells at Muslim protesters chanting "We want freedom" and "Allah is great", an AFP correspondent saw.

The demonstrators tried to march to the residence of hardline Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani, who is under house arrest.

Several thousand Muslims, including women and children, gathered to offer Eid prayers inside a ground near the "martyrs' graveyard" in Srinagar where many of those killed in the 20-year-old insurgency against Indian rule in the Muslim-majority region are buried.

The region's main moderate separatist leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, used the festivities to urge New Delhi to resolve the long-standing dispute over Kashmiri sovereignty.

Farooq accused New Delhi of being "stubborn" and warned that peace in the sub-continent could only be achieved by "resolving the core issue of Kashmir".

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both. The dispute has triggered two wars between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals.

Separatist groups in Indian-controlled Kashmir are divided between those who favor accession to Pakistan and those demanding Kashmiri independence.

Indian troops shot dead two militants overnight in northern Kupwara district, bordering Pakistan-ruled Kashmir.

In southern Kulgam district, suspected militants shot dead a 24-year-old woman and wounded her 16-year-old sister, police said.

Bloodshed in the region has declined sharply since India and Pakistan embarked on a peace process in 2004.

The process was suspended after militant attacks last November on India's financial capital Mumbai, which killed 166 people.