Kashmir protests.

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Two policemen were killed yesterday when thousands of angry Hindus in Indian Kashmir stormed a police post as religious tensions reached a new pitch in the insurgency-racked state.The policemen were killed when the protesters attacked the isolated police post in the mainly Hindu region of Jourian in the south of the Muslim-majority state.A rescue team "could not reach the spot in time to save them," said a police official. Some 4,000 Hindus were involved in the attack, he said.The latest violence erupted after the state government reneged on a plan to transfer land to a Hindu shrine, plunging Kashmir - already in the grip of an Islamic separatist insurgency - into new turmoil.The deaths came despite a curfew imposed on the Jammu region by the army last weekend. They followed the killing of two Hindu protesters on Monday in the Jammu area with police firing after demonstrators attacked hundreds of buses and cars.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh scheduled an all-party meeting in New Delhi for today to discuss how to defuse tensions in Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state.Singh is keen to get assurances from the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janta Party that it will not fuel tensions amid reports party activists were halting trucks carrying supplies for the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley.However, Hindu leaders warned the demonstrations would continue.Kashmir, where the 19-year revolt has left at least 43,000 dead, had been enjoying a lull in violence against the backdrop of India's peace process with Pakistan to settle the disputed region's future when the row erupted in June.In the valley, meanwhile, protesters hurling bricks battled police in the state's main city Srinagar as fury intensified over attacks on Muslims by Hindus in the Jammu area.

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