Dozens of protesters threw stones at a government adviser's car Wednesday during a strike to protest a recent fuel price hike in the Indian portion of Kashmir, police said.
One armed guard was injured in the attack, but Manzoor Ahmed, an adviser to the top elected official of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, escaped unhurt, said Prabhakar Tripathy, a spokesman of paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force.
Businesses, schools and roads were shut down in the region and streets were largely empty for a straight third day in Srinagar, the main city in the state, after a large traders group called the strike in the Himalayan region.
The strike was in protest of Indian authorities hiking subsidized gasoline prices by about 10 percent last week to offset soaring international oil prices.
Government offices, banks and schools were either closed or poorly staffed, and thousands of tourists were stranded in the city.
The protesters chanted "We want freedom" and "Long live Pakistan" as police and paramilitary soldiers stopped them from marching to the center of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, Tripathy told The Associated Press.
Government forces fired tear gas and used batons to disperse the protesters who hurled rocks at them, said Tripathy.
Kashmir is divided between Indian and Pakistan and in Indian Kashmir, most protests turn into anti-India demonstrations.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over control of Kashmir since they won independence from Britain in 1947.
