Srinagar, India  - Police fired in the air and used rubber pellets, tear gas, water cannons and batons to disperse thousands of protestors in the streets of towns in the northern Indian state Jammu and Kashmir Monday, officials and witnesses said.

The demonstrators, mostly fruit growers, were attempting to march towards Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administrated Kashmir to protest what they called the "economic blockade" of the Kashmir valley by Hindu activists in the southern Jammu district.

Kashmir, a disputed region between India and Pakistan, is divided into two parts, one administered by Pakistan and the other by India.

Five people were injured when the police opened fire at Sangrama, about 40 kilometres north-west of Srinagar as fruit growers from Sopore town tried to move towards the line of control (LOC) that separates India and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, police said.

There were reports of police action against protestors in Sopore and Baramullah towns besides Srinagar.

While a couple of districts in the southern part of Jammu and Kashmir, including Jammu, have a large Hindu population, the rest have a Muslim majority.

Protests in Jammu over allotting government land to a Hindu shrine included blocking of a major highway that feeds all essential supplies to the upper reaches of the state.

The blockade also stopped Jammu and Kashmir's fruit growers, largely based in the upper Kashmir valley, from transporting their goods to the rest of India.

A forum of separatist groups and fruit growers associations called for a march to the LOC to protest against the blockade.

Security forces deployed in state capital Srinagar since early Monday did not allow anyone to move on the road that leads to the LOC in the Uri sector of Baramullah district, north-west of Srinagar.

Prominent leaders of the separatist Hurriyat Conference and leaders of the regional Peoples Democratic Party, which is supporting the march, were under virtual house arrest, according to followers.

Protestors blockading the highway in Jammu demanded government land be allotted to the board that runs an annual pilgrimage to the Hindu cave shrine of Amarnath in the high Himalayas.

A government order granting the land to the board to build rest rooms and toilets for pilgrims was cancelled earlier this month after protests by Kashmiri Muslims.

The land row has deepened the communal divide in Kashmir, wracked by a violent secessionist militant movement for over two decades.

An initiative by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to break the current impasse by sending a delegation of leaders from all major national parties including the opposition to talks to both sides over the weekend failed to resolve the issue. (dpa)