Hundreds of Kashmir protesters clash with police, demand investigation of unmarked graves

SRINAGAR, India (AP) - Hundreds of protesters clashed with police Friday in Indian Kashmir, demanding an investigation into the recent discovery of more than 900 unmarked graves as India's prime minister visited the troubled territory.

At least 10 policemen were injured - three critically - as protesters threw rocks, said local police officer Pervez Ahmed. It was not immediately known if any protesters were hurt.

Police fired tear gas and used bamboo batons to disperse the protesters, Ahmed said.

Mirwaiz Omer Farooq, the chief Muslim cleric and chairman of the main separatist alliance in the Indian-controlled section of divided Kashmir, led a vehicle convoy of nearly 2,000 protesters to hand over a petition to the U.N. office in the territory's main city, Srinagar. The petition called for an investigation into alleged human rights violations by Indian authorities amid the territory's separatist conflict.

During a sermon he preached at a mosque before the protest Friday, Farooq demanded an investigation into the unmarked graves, believed to be those of people killed by India's security forces during the territory's nearly two-decade uprising against Indian rule.

Farooq was detained at a police station later Friday, another police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

About a dozen militant groups have been fighting since 1989 for Muslim-majority Kashmir's independence from mostly Hindu India or a union with predominantly Muslim Pakistan. The territory is divided between India and Pakistan, which both claim it all and fought two wars over it.

Four senior leaders of Indian Kashmir's main separatist alliance were placed under house arrest hours before Friday's protests, said police officer Shabir Ahmed.

He had said that they were detained as a preventive measure because police anticipated law and order problems during Indian Prime Minister's Manmohan Singh's trip to Kashmir.

Last month, the Association of Parents of Disappeared People, an Indian Kashmir rights group, issued a report saying it found 940 unmarked graves near Uri, one of Kashmir's most violent areas. Uri is near the Line of Control, the de facto frontier that divides the parts of Kashmir controlled by India and Pakistan.