Pakistan condemns Indian 'brutality' in Kashmir

ISLAMABAD/SRINAGAR: Pakistan on Friday accused India of "brutality" and condemned its deadly crackdown on protestors clamouring for an end to Indian rule in Kashmir.

"Pakistan strongly condemns the brutality and the blatant use of force by Indian security forces," said Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

"Gross and systematic abuse of human rights and Indian repression in Kashmir must end. Pakistan calls upon the government of India to exercise restraint," he said, describing killings, arrests and detentions as "unacceptable".

Security forces have imposed a curfew on all major towns and trouble spots in Indian Kashmir for six days in a bid to control protests that have escalated into arson and mob violence.

More than 90 people have been shot dead by security forces in anti-India demonstrations that began in June, with 17 killed on Monday in the worst violence in the disputed Muslim-majority region in years.

India has an estimated 500,000 troops in the small disputed territory, which is split into Indian and Pakistani administered parts. The Indian area has been in the grip of an separatist insurgency for the last 20 years.

Both India and Pakistan claim the mountainous region in full by both. The territory has been the cause of two of the three wars the countries have fought since independence from Britain more than half a century ago.

Indian police say one dead in Kashmir shooting

Indian police said they had shot and killed a protester in Kashmir on Friday amid several clashes in the restive region, where thousands defied a strict curfew.

Police opened fire on a crowd of stone-throwing protesters in central Budgam district on Friday morning, injuring four.

"One of them succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital," a local police officer told AFP, asking not to be named.

Elsewhere, in Chachilora village in northern Baramulla district, a protester was injured in police firing, an officer said, adding that another four people were hurt in the same district's Palhalan area.

Late on Thursday, seven protesters were injured when security forces opened fire at two separate places in Sopore town, 50 km north of the main town of Srinagar.

Security forces were braced for unrest on Friday, the day of congregational Muslim prayers that often degenerates into anti-India protests and violence.

A strict curfew has been clamped on most of the region since last Sunday.