Demonstrators in Indian occupied Kashmir burnt tyres and threw stones at police on Tuesday, protesting against the first municipal polls in 27 years, police and witnesses said in the revolt-racked Himalayan territory. They reported no injuries in the protest. Many shops and businesses were closed in the occupied Srinagar, in response to a call by the main alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, to boycott the elections.

The poll to choose town councils in occupied Kashmir is being held in four phases. Tuesday was the second stage of voting.

"We appeal to people to exhibit their resentment against the futile exercise by remaining indoors on election day," a statement of Hurriyat said.

In downtown, the summer capital of Indian occupied Kashmir, many polling stations were empty but in other areas of the city people stood in long queues to vote.

In the first phase of the civic polls, nearly 60 percent of voters exercised their franchise on January 29.

WINNING HEARTS? The protests came as India's army chief said on Tuesday he will focus on winning hearts and minds of Kashmiris during his three-year-term.

"If you don't harm innocents, you are winning hearts and minds," General Joginder Jaswant Singh, India's first army chief from the Sikh community, told reporters a day after he took over the world's third largest army.

"If people have a positive image of soldiers, it is more important than the number of terrorists killed."

Singh was replying to questions about allegations of abuses by troops, including the molestation of a 10-year-old girl and her mother by a major last October in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Copyright Reuters, 2005