From correspondents in Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 07:02 PM IST

An umbrella organisation agitating for return of forest land to the Amarnath shrine board Monday accused the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party of sparking anti-Hindu riots in Muslim-majority areas of Jammu.

The Shri Amarnath Sangarash Samiti (SASS) asked the people in Jammu to boycott leaders of the PDP and the National Conference and also former state ministers of the Congress Mangat Ram Sharma and Gulchain Singh Charak for their alleged 'dubious role'.

Addressing a press conference here, SASS convenor Leela Karan Sharma said it was 'imperative to revive the shattered confidence of the Hindu minority community in Poonch and Kishtwar districts'.

Sharma demanded immediate arrest of PDP and National Conference leaders and alleged they were behind the communal riots in the Jammu region of the troubled Jammu and Kashmir state.

All of Jammu and Kashmir has been simmering with violent protests in the wake of land trasfer order -- which was later revoked -- awarding 40 hectares of forest land to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) that manages the annual pilgrimage to a Hindu cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.

Around 50 people have been killed, mostly in police and paramilitary firing, during the last nearly three months of protests in Jammu as well in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley in the wake of the row, which has caused communal violence in the state.

Sharma also lashed out at National Conference president Omar Abdullah for 'telling lies after lies' on TV channels and even terming accident cases as 'victims' of the 'economic blockade'.

'All of them want to burn the state,' he alleged.

He said Jammu agitation was a 'mass movement' and these leaders of the Kashmir Valley were 'hell bent upon causing communal trouble in the region where the government has unleashed a reign of terror on the peaceful processionists'.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)