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Muzaffarabad, Pakistan (AFP) Feb 5, 2010 Thousands of people rallied across Pakistan on Friday to denounce Indian rule in Kashmir, the disputed mainly Muslim state divided between the nuclear-armed rivals. A Pakistani public holiday, Kashmir Solidarity Day, supports the region's right to self-determination in line with UN resolutions that call for a plebiscite in Kashmir on whether it should be ruled by India or Pakistan. This year's event came a day after it emerged India had proposed foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan, a breakthrough in relations that were frozen after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, blamed on Pakistani militants. Banners and hoardings calling for Kashmir's freedom from Indian rule were put up by main roads and intersections across Pakistan. In the capital Islamabad, several thousand activists from hardline party Jamaat-e-Islami demonstrated and formed a human chain, an AFP photographer saw. In Lahore, Pakistan's second largest city, thousands of people took to the streets chanting "Allah Akbar" (God is greatest), "We want jihad against India" and "Kashmir will become Pakistan", an AFP reporter witnessed. Pakistan observed a one-minute silence at 10:00 am (0500 GMT) as a mark of respect to the more than 47,000 people killed since an insurgency broke out in mainly Muslim Indian Kashmir in 1989. In the Pakistani-administered zone, hundreds of people from the hardline Sunni Muslim party Jamaat-e-Islami rallied in the regional capital Muzaffarabad, while hundreds of other people formed a human chain in the town of Kohala. "I warn India to stop human violations in Indian Kashmir and pull out its forces from there. The UN and America should also stop India from its cruelties," Raja Mohammad Naseem, a provincial minister, told participants. Demonstrators rallied in Pakistan's financial capital Karachi and the other major cities of Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta. "I wish to reassure my Kashmiri brethren that Pakistan remains firmly committed to finding a just and peaceful solution of the Kashmir dispute," said President Asif Ali Zardari in a published statement. Kashmir was split in two in the aftermath of independence on the subcontinent when British rule ended in 1947. Both India and Pakistan claim the entire territory, which is divided by a heavily militarised Line of Control. India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring the Islamist insurgency in Kashmir. Pakistan denies the claim but has often spoken in support of the fighters.
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