SRINAGAR (India) - POLICE fired tear gas in Indian Kashmir to disperse hundreds of angry demonstrators protesting the killing of a man by government forces and to oppose elections due in October, police said on Monday.

Shops, banks and government offices were closed for the day, and public and private vehicles stayed off the roads across much of the region in response to a strike called by Muslim separatist groups protesting Indian rule in the disputed region.

Protesters blamed government forces for fatally shooting Javed Ahmed Bhat, a 23-year-old bystander, on Saturday in Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state.

'He was returning after offering prayers in a mosque and was shot and killed by government forces,' his father, Mr Abdul Majid said.

Government forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse an angry crowd on Saturday as well.

More than two months of angry protests have left at least 43 people dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir, most of them killed when soldiers opened fire on Muslim protesters.

On Monday, Kashmiri protesters clashed with government forces at three places in Srinagar, said Mr Prabhakar Tripathi, a spokesman for the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force. One paramilitary soldier was injured by rocks thrown by the protesters.

Monday's strike was called by the Jammu-Kashmir Coordination Committee, whose members include Muslim separatist leaders and representatives of businesses, lawyers and government employees.

Mr Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a key pro-Pakistan leader, also warned the Indian government Monday against holding state legislative elections in the region, which are due in October.

'If New Delhi goes ahead with the elections, it will add fuel to the fire in Kashmir,' said Mr Geelani.

Mr Geelani and two other separatist leaders, Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Omer Farooq, have been put under house arrest by Indian authorities since Friday to prevent them from leading protest marches.

'India should read the writing on the wall that Kashmiris don't want elections but freedom from India,' he said when reached by telephone.

Mr Geelani's warning came as India's Election Commission began consulting various political groups to set a date for the election.

The latest unrest, the worst to hit Kashmir in more than a decade, was triggered by a government move to hand over land to a Hindu shrine.

Muslim separatist leaders launched protests in June saying the government plan was aimed at changing the demography of the Muslim-majority region.

The plan was quickly scrapped, angering the region's Hindu minority who also launched their own massive protests, forcing authorities to allow Hindu pilgrims temporary use of land near the shrine.

The Muslim separatists' demonstrations have snowballed into a broader anti-India movement.

Kashmir has been divided between Hindu-majority India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan since 1947, when the two fought their first war over the region in the aftermath of Britain's bloody partition of the subcontinent. Both countries continue to claim Kashmir in its entirety.

A separatist insurgency in Indian Kashmir has killed an estimated 68,000 people since 1989. -- AP