[Hong Kong AFP in English 1318 GMT 30 Mar 92]

[Text] Srinagar, India, March 30 (AFP)--Some 1,000 Muslims staged a pro-Kashmir independence rally here Monday [30 March], burning the governor of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in effigy for not allowing a storming of the Indian Zone.

The rally was staged as Indian troops along the ceasefire line dividing the Muslim-dominated mountain region stayed on maximum alert and enforced a curfew in three tense border towns. No attempt to storm the border was reported.

"We want freedom, we will die for freedom," chanted the demonstrators, who gathered at the Ali Kadal neighbourhood in downtown Srinagar on a call from Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) guerrilla leader Javed Ahmad Mir. "Death to Sardar Abdul Qayyum," they shouted as they set alight an effigy of the premier of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, whose administration cracked down on JKLF cadres to scuttle their plans to storm the Line of Control Monday.

Indian paramilitary troopers in the vicinity stayed inside their bunkers and made no effort to disperse the demonstrators, who assembled in cold, murky weather to wave pro-independence banners and hear Mir. Mir delivered a 15-minute speech, lashing out at both Pakistan and India, who both claim Kashmir and hold parts of the state over which they have fought two wars since their independence from Britain in 1947.

The 28-year-old guerrilla leader said the people of Kashmir had to fight for independence on their own and could not depend on outside help to boost their campaign. The JKLF has announced it was postponing plans to take activists to the Line of Control, or ceasefire line, on Monday to receive marchers from Pakistan, where police arrested the group's leader, Amanullah Khan, last week. The JKLF is the oldest of several Muslim militant groups fighting for secession in the Indian part of Kashmir, but most of them favour union with Pakistan rather than independence.

An attempt by Pakistan-based JKLF supporters to storm the Line of Control and enter India last month was thwarted by Pakistani forces, who opened fire and killed 16 people by unofficial count.

Meanwhile, Indian authorities clamped a curfew in the towns of Sopore, Anantnag and Baramulla as a precaution and tightened security in Srinagar, the urban hub of the secessionist campaign. B.S. Bedi, director of the Kashmir police, told AFP that no attempt had been made to breach the border on either side until Monday evening.

Any violation of the ceasefire line would meet with a "heavy hand," Bedi said, adding that extensive security arrangements had been made all along the border and in the Kashmir Valley. Muslim militants and security forces exchanged intermittent gunfire in the valley, but no casualties were reported. Six bullet-riddled bodies were found in the District of Budgam, but the victims were not identified.

The Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, another militant group, withdrew an indefinite general strike which entered the fourth day Monday. The strike had been called to protest the alleged death in police custody of a leading militant who the police said escaped arrest. The Muslimeen said it was cancelling the protest because of the Moslem holy month of Ramadan.