By Sheikh Mushtaq SRINAGAR, India, Aug 5 (Reuters) - India's Muslim-majority Kashmir valley was running short of food, fuel and medical supplies after Hindu protesters stopped transport along the region's major highway in the latest protests over a land row. Hindus in Kashmir's winter capital of Jammu, protesting against the state government for backing down on transferring forest land to a Hindu shrine trust, have attacked lorries carrying essential supplies to the Kashmir valley. Trader associations said lorries loaded with vital goods like medicines, vegetables, meat and fuel were stranded on the region's main 300-km (185 mile) highway, the only surface link between the Kashmir valley and the rest of India. The controversy over the issue of land for a Hindu trust has polarised Indian Kashmir, split between the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley and the Hindu-dominated region around Jammu. The Kashmir government had planned to transfer land to build shelters for Hindu pilgrims visiting Amarnath, a cave shrine, to pray by a sacred ice stalagmite. Faced with huge Muslim protests, it rescinded the order, sparking Hindu demonstrations. Three people were killed on Monday in protests in Jammu and Kashmir. Police in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, fired teargas for a second day on Tuesday to quell hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators, angry over the highway blockade and reported assaults on Muslims by Hindus in the Jammu region. "We will continue peaceful protests against the economic blockade and harassment of Muslims by Hindu extremists," said Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a hardline separatist leader. The protests, some of the biggest since a separatist rebellion in Kashmir sprang up in 1989, have led India's government to reach out to the main Hindu nationalist opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, to defuse the crisis. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called a meeting of India's political parties on Wednesday to discuss the Kashmir situation. Some Kashmir business groups have suggested routing goods through India's traditional foe Pakistan. India and Pakistan, which have fought wars over Kashmir, claim the region in full but rule in parts. Kashmir's fruit-growers complained their produce bound for markets in major Indian cities was rotting . The government said supplies should soon be moving to Srinagar. "All measures have been initiated at all levels to ensure uninterrupted movement of such trucks," said Anil Goswami, a senior government official in Delhi. Tens of thousands of people have been killed since 1989 in violence involving Indian troops and Muslim separatist militants in the scenic region. (Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Jerry Norton) (For the latest Reuters news on India see: http://in.reuters.com, for blogs see http://blogs.reuters.com/in/) REUTERS MUS as
People commute on a flooded road after heavy monsoon rain in the northern Indian city of Mathura August 5, 2008. The June-September rains are vital for farm output and the overall ...
