SRINAGAR, India, July 23, (Agencies): Shops and businesses shut down Saturday in Indian-controlled Kashmir to protest an alleged abduction and rape that triggered two days of violent anti-India demonstrations. The protests, held in the alleged rape victim’s village south of the main city of Srinagar, kindled concerns of a return to the deadly street violence that has consumed the disputed Himalayan region in recent years. Police have barred public gatherings in Manzgam village, where thousands on Friday marched and threw stones at law enforcement officers, who responded by swinging batons and firing tear gas, police said. At least five civilians and four officers were injured.

Answering separatist leaders’ calls for a general strike on Saturday, banks, schools and most other businesses remained shuttered in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar. Public transport was not running, and few government workers showed up at their offices.
Police said, meanwhile, that a medical examination of the woman alleging rape by two Indian soldiers showed “no marks of violence or resistance on any part of the body.” The investigation continues, and officials assured that justice would be done. “We’ve collected the woman’s clothes and sent them for forensic examination. We’ve also videographed the spot where the alleged crime took place,” special police investigator Mohammed Shafi Mir said. “The probe will be completed within shortest possible time.” The army has opened a separate investigation.

The woman says in her police statement filed Thursday that two soldiers abducted her Tuesday near her Manzgam home and held her in a meadow hut, raping her repeatedly over two days. Her husband later told reporters she was left in the meadow and made her way home in a state of shock, but that she would be able to identify her attackers. Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani rejected the police and army investigations as biased and called for Saturday’s public boycott across the region.

Mounting anger prompted Kashmiri officials to call for calm, wary that the case could touch off renewed conflict in the volatile region that is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed by both in its entirety. A gunbattle Saturday between Indian troops and rebels killed suspected insurgents in a forest north of Srinagar, Indian army spokesman Lt Col J.S. Brar said. There was no independent confirmation or statement from the rebels. Police have registered a case and constituted a special team to investigate the latest incident, while the army has also launched its own investigation. “If there is any truth in the allegation, then it is a criminal act against which strict action must be taken,” the army chief of Kashmir valley S.A. Hasnain told reporters in Srinagar. “Army is cooperating in the police investigation and we have launched a separate investigation of our own,” Hasnain said. He said that in Kashmir even militants use combat uniforms.

“I do want to clarify this that in Kashmir, (military) uniform is also worn by terrorists,” he said, and did not rule out the incident involving rebels aiming to incite anger against the army.
State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said an identification parade of soldiers from the army unit stationed in the area could be held. He added the “guilty won’t be spared”. Muslim-majority Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan, with the Indian-administered sector hit by a violent 20-year insurgency against rule from New Delhi that has left more than 47,000 people dead. Kashmiri separatists have called for more protests and also demanded an independent probe by human rights groups or a team from the UN.