INDIA reimposed a curfew in Kashmir yesterday in a botched bid to prevent a protest march that sparked violent clashes.

Separatist leaders had called for a march to Srinagar’s principal mosque as part of a wave of protests sparked by the killing of insurgent Burhan Wani on July 8 — and the march went ahead despite pre-dawn house visits by police warning locals not to stray out of doors.

Even bakers and milkmen were prevented from doing their rounds, but crowds gathered anyway after Friday prayers and headed to a UN office to chant: “We want freedom, go India, go back.”

Two march organisers, Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, were taken away by police after breaching house arrest.

Police launched into the protesters with tear gas, wooden truncheons and pellet guns, despite a growing scandal over the use of the latter after demonstrators have been blinded.

Even India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh has come out against the use of pellet guns, but the Central Reserve Police Force has continued to defend the weapons — a decision the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has slammed as “unacceptable” when “the pellets have darkened the worlds of over 100 young boys.”

The use of “brutal force” against protesters has “gravely injured the Kashmiri psyche,” said state assembly member and CPI-M Jammu and Kashmir secretary Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami.

Doctors at Srinagar’s main hospital said they have treated more than 50 people for pellet injuries over the past three days. Clashes between residents and police was also reported yesterday in other Kashmir towns, including Bandipora and Sopore.

Since the killing of Mr Wani, who belonged to separatist insurgent organisation Hizbul Mujahideen, India’s part of Kashmir — the province is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed in its entirety by both — has been plunged into its worst violence for over six years.

Thousands of civilians and police have been injured in clashes and at least 50 people have been killed, 49 of them civilians and one a police officer whose car was pushed into a river.