Indian analysts for referendum in Held Kashmir

NEW DELHI (AFP) - A lack of political leadership threatens to allow seething Hindu-Muslim tensions and Hurriyat anger in Occupied Kashmir to spiral out of control, analysts say.

Held Kashmir, which is witnessing its biggest anti-India demonstrations in years, is ‘poised at a very delicate stage’, said security analyst Uday Bhaskar.

On Friday, hundreds of thousands of people massed in Srinagar to demand ‘azadi’ or freedom and protest against New Delhi’s rule - the second major demonstration of the week.

The trouble began in June when the Held Kashmir administration announced a plan to donate land to a Hindu shrine.

Muslims in the valley saw the move as a ploy by mainly Hindu India to occupy their land and staged huge protests, forcing a reversal of the plan. But the decision to scrap the move angered Hindus further south in Jammu, who viewed it as an act of appeasement, prompting hardliners to block the region’s main highway - a protest that shut the Kashmir Valley.