Awwal 08, 1432, Feb 11, 2011, SPA -- Shops and businesses have shut across the Indian portion of Kashmir in response to a strike call by separatist groups. The action is to honor a pro-independence leader who was executed by Indian authorities in 1984, according to AP. A police officer says authorities have banned the assembly of more than four people to prevent any public protests in the Himalayan region. Separatist rebels have been fighting since 1989 for the region's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan. Mohammad Maqbool Butt, the founder of the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, was hanged in New Delhi's Tihar prison after a court found him guilty of killing an Indian intelligence officer and conspiring to kill an Indian diplomat in Britain.
