Dozens held in human rights protest in Kashmir

SRINAGAR, India - Police detained dozens of people protesting against alleged human rights violations by security forces in Indian Kashmir on Monday, officials and witnesses said.

Hundreds of members of different Kashmiri separatist groups, many of them masked, marched in the capital Srinagar to mark Human Rights Day. The silent protesters carried placards that read "Stop human rights violations, stop custodial killings."

"The law of the jungle prevails," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chief of the region's separatist All Parties Hurriyat (freedom) Conference alliance. "They (security forces) kill with impunity."

India denies any systematic abuses in the region and says at least 85 soldiers, found guilty of human rights violations in Kashmir, had been punished since the revolt against Indian rule broke out in the region in 1989.

But the protesters said atrocities had gone up in the region where the insurgency has officially killed more than 42,000 people. Human rights activists put the toll at 60,000 dead or missing.

"Atrocities in Kashmir have increased rapidly despite fake slogans by the ruling party," Mohammad Yasin Malik, the chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, wrote to U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon.