SRINAGAR — Hundreds of government forces with automatic weapons patrolled the streets of Indian Kashmir's main city to stop a rally to mark the anniversaries of the assassinations of two Kashmiri leaders. The two, Mirwaiz Mohammed Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone, had supported Kashmir's right to vote on whether it should be independent or governed either by India or Pakistan. Shops, schools and businesses closed and public transport stayed off the roads Thursday in Srinagar in response to a general strike call by separatists. Authorities ordered residents in the old quarters of Srinagar to stay indoors and put Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who was scheduled to lead the rally later Thursday, and some other separatist leaders under house arrest. Farooq was to have led a march to a cemetery where his father and hundreds of other Kashmiri separatists and civilians killed during the last 25 years are buried. — AP
