Pro-India Kashmiri lawmaker quits India's Parliament

Tariq Hameed Karra, lawmaker and a founding member of Kashmir's People's Democratic Party, addresses a press conference in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016. Kara, a prominent pro-India Kashmiri politician has resigned from India's Parliament and from his regional party to protest a government crackdown in Kashmir that prevented people from offering Eid prayers for the first time in the troubled region. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan) (The Associated Press)

A prominent pro-India Kashmiri politician has resigned from India's Parliament and from his regional party to protest a government crackdown in Kashmir that prevented people from offering Eid prayers for the first time in the troubled region.

Tariq Hameed Karra, a founding member of the People's Democratic Party, said he quit Thursday to express his anger over the "brutal policy'" followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and the acquiescence of his party, a coalition partner.

His decision is a setback for his party in Indian-controlled Kashmir, which has been wracked by massive protests for the past two months following the killing of a top rebel leader. More than 80 people have been killed and thousands wounded, mostly by government forces firing bullets and shotgun pellets to quell the protests.

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