Manmohan Singh for urgent Kashmir talks

SRINAGAR  - A Hindu protester was shot dead in an army firing in Occupied Kashmir on Wednesday as Indian Premier Manmohan Singh held talks with the nation’s political parties in a bid to defuse tensions in the region.

Indian government officials said the country’s major political parties had decided at talks in New Delhi to send representatives to the troubled region to assess the situation.

The protester died in a mostly Hindu area when the army opened fire to quell violent demonstrators who defied a curfew and blocked a highway in a bid to impose an economic blockade on the mainly Muslim Kashmir valley, police said.