SRINAGAR, India (AP)--Shopkeepers downed shutters and streets were empty in the Kashmir capital Saturday as students protested against an article in Time magazine which they deemed offensive to Islam.
Police fired several rounds of tear gas to disperse college students who were protesting an article in the April 16 issue of Time which they alleged contained blasphemous remarks against Prophet Mohammed.
The students pelted stones at the police and set fire to several jeeps and cars. Most of the vehicles belonged to government offices, but some private vehicles were damaged as well, police said.
A few students had protested in Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu and Kashmir state, Friday as well, but they were soon dispersed.
Soon after Friday's protests, police officials seized all copies of the magazine from news agents across Srinagar, said a shop assistant at the Abdullah News Agency in Lal Chowk, Srinagar's main commercial area.
On Saturday, students protested at six sites in Srinagar. Police used tear gas and bamboo canes when they began setting aflame cars and jeeps parked outside government offices in the Civil Lines area of the city.
In Anantnag, 50 kilometers south of Srinagar, college students stopped buses and blocked the streets.
"We've been told the article has some remarks against the Prophet. That's what we are protesting about," said Asif Aizaz, a college student. Aizaz said he hadn't read the article but had heard about it from colleagues.
India has the world's second largest Muslim population and Kashmir is its only state which has a Muslim majority.
On Friday, Malaysia's Home Ministry ordered censorship officials to pull last week's issue of Time off newsstands because the article, "Jerusalem at the Time of Jesus," contained a caricature of Prophet Mohammed seen as blasphemous to Islam, Malaysia's official religion.
Graphic illustrations or images of the founder of the Islamic religion are considered blasphemy in Islam.