SRINAGAR, India -- The governor of the strife-torn northern state of Jammu and Kashmir dissolved the state assembly Monday.
'The Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly stands dissolved forthwith,' said Gov. Jagmohan during a press briefing.
Jagmohan, who was sworn in as governor last month, said his decision was a 'most firm and positive step towards the goal of attaining complete normalcy in the state.'
There have been widespread allegations that the assembly was not representative of the people because the 1987 state election was rigged.
The move comes a month after violence erupted throughout the predominantly Moslem Kashmir Valley where militants are leading a bloody campaign to force the Indian government to allow Kashmir to secede from India.
New Delhi assumed control of the state and suspended the state assembly Jan. 19 after the state's chief minister, Farooq Abdullah, resigned.
Jagmohan said state elections would be held as soon as peace was restored to the region, Jagmohan said.
'Events of the last one or two years have clearly demonstrated that the assembly could not even pretend that it had a representative character,' Jagmohan said. 'As regards to the working of the state government, it's catalogue of maladministration was unending.'
In the state's summer capital of Srinagar, 400 miles north of New Delhi, the streets were largely deserted except for security and paramilitary forces on patrol after the government imposed a strict curfew.
Also Sunday, militants opened fire on a group of security force personnel in the Batmaloo area of Srinagar, killing one of them, a government spokesman said.
In a separate incident Sunday evening, security forces opened fire on a crowd throwing stones at them at Bijbihada, 30 miles south of Srinagar. One person was killed at the scene and one of five others injured during the encounter later died from his injuries at a hospital, the spokesman said.
Tens of thousands of security and paramilitary forces are stationed throughout the Kashmir Valley to quell a general uprising against Indian rule. The uprising is supported by virtually all of the region's 3 million Moslems.
More that 100 people have died in secessionist violence in the past month. Most fatalities have been demonstrators shot by security forces.
Militants insist that an independent Kashmir is necessary because of past neglect for the region by the Hindu-dominated government in New Delhi.
