SRINAGAR: Thousands of heavily-armed police enforced a curfew across Indian Kashmir on Tuesday after the bloodiest day of a summer of unrest left 17 people dead in the disputed region.
Three more civilians died in hospital overnight after police on Monday shot dead 13 separatist protesters, who defied curfews and torched a Christian school and other buildings in violence stoked by the desecration of the Koran.
One policeman was also killed, and scores of people were injured.
Officials said two people were wounded on Tuesday in fresh police firing after a small number of residents defied curfew orders to protest in the northern district of Baramulla.
Furious protests have erupted almost daily in Muslim-majority Kashmir since a 17-year old student was killed by a police teargas shell in the main town of Srinagar on June 11.
The death unleashed a wave of public anger, with security forces firing live rounds to control violent demonstrations by stone-pelting anti-India protesters.
Clashes over the past three months have left 87 civilians dead, mostly killed by the security forces.
Some of Monday’s worst rioting was reported in Tangmarg village, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Srinagar, where a crowd chanted anti-US and pro-Islam slogans before burning down a missionary school.
The school was empty at the time and no one was injured in the fire, but at least six civilians were killed when security forces opened fire on the crowd after they set government buildings ablaze, police said.
Top state police official Kuldeep Khoda told reporters in Srinagar on Monday that steps had been taken to protect other church-run schools.
Khoda and other local officials blamed Iran’s state-run Press TV for fanning simmering tension in Kashmir with a report on a group of Christians who tore pages from the Koran in a demonstration outside the White House on Saturday.
Local authorities later banned the station from broadcasting on cable channels in Kashmir, where there was already anger at a previous plan by a Florida pastor to burn the Koran.
A police statement in Srinagar on Tuesday said that most of the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley had been put under curfew "to maintain peace".
Riot police and paramilitary forces were patrolling the deserted streets of Srinagar. Neighborhoods and road intersections had been sealed with barbed wire, and police shouted at residents to stay indoors.
Flights to and from Srinagar were suspended due to security concerns and curfew restrictions, airport officials said.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed in full by both.
Since 1989, an anti-India insurgency has raged in the part ruled by New Delhi, claiming an estimated 47,000 lives.
A majority of Kashmiris favour independence for the region, according to polls.
In New Delhi, senior ministers met late Monday to discuss steps to defuse the tension, but decided against heeding calls from some in the government to partially lift a 20-year-old emergency law that is despised by many in Kashmir.
The cabinet said it was "deeply distressed" by the unrest, but offered no new initiatives besides an all-party meeting for later in the week to discuss solutions to the violence.
The US ambassador to India, Timothy J. Roemer, said he was "dismayed" at the latest violence and repeated President Barack Obama’s condemnation of the Koran-ripping.
The Vatican said it deplored the "senseless violence".
Kashmiri separatist Syed Ali Geelani, who has orchestrated recent anti-India demonstrations, called for calm and for Christians to be protected.
