Srinagar, India  - Eight people were killed in India-administered Kashmir Tuesday as police fired at groups of people defying curfew, local media and witnesses said.

Curfew was imposed across the Kashmir valley for fear of violence as the separatist Hurriyat Conference prepared to bury a senior leader who died Monday when police fired on protestors marching towards the line of control dividing India- and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the disputed Kashmir region which is divided into two parts, administered by the two countries. India-administered Kashmir forms a part of northern Jammu and Kashmir state.

The Hurriyat Conference, along with the Kashmiri Fruit Growers Association, had called for the march to Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir to protest a blockade of the main road to the valley through southern Jammu.

Hindu activists in the Jammu region had been blockading the road which links the upper Kashmir valley with the rest of India in protest against the cancellation of a land allotment to a board that organizes an annual pilgrimage to a Hindu cave shrine.

The order was cancelled after political parties in Muslim-majority northern Kashmir, where the shrine is located, opposed the donation of government land to the shrine board.

At least 30 people have been killed and scores injured in the communalized, violent protests going on for more than one month.

Attempts by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resolve the issue through an all-party initiative have so far yielded no results.

Local media reports said eight people were killed in police action against protestors attempting to march to the de facto border on Monday. At least 30,000 protestors were still camping in Uri sector, north-west of Srinagar, about 36 kilometres from the border, where they were stopped by the army.

Local administration and police refused to give any information or confirm the reports. A senior police official based in Srinagar, however, described the situation as "very tense."

People were defying curfew orders in several towns on Tuesday and police opened fire at least on two occasions in Srinagar, where people clashed with police as they tried to march to the main Jama mosque, where the body of the dead Hurriyat leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz is being kept.

Four persons were killed in Srinagar and four reportedly died in a separate shooting at Bandipora, about 60 kilometres north of Srinagar, local journalists said. (dpa)