‘How many must be shot before Kashmir is news?’

It was unfortunate timing. At the very moment David Cameron was pleasing his Indian audience by criticising Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism, security forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir were gunning down civilian protesters in the streets of Srinagar, the summer capital of the disputed state.

It is not clear why Cameron failed to mention the worsening crisis in Kashmir — the violence and civilian deaths have been all over the Indian media — particularly after he was so forthright about the Gaza crisis during his trip to Turkey. But the killings of demonstrators, curfews and riots in the Muslim-majority state have not gone unnoticed in the Muslim world, and Pakistan’s President Zardari will almost certainly have raised the issue in London this week. The PM’s silence about Kashmir could cost him — and the United Kingdom — considerable Muslim goodwill.

In the West, people tend to forget what a rallying cry ‘occupied’ Kashmir has been for Islamists, Pakistanis and ordinary Muslims. Osama bin Laden said in a 2002 statement that one of the reasons he was making war on America was its support for India over Kashmir. Today, the 21-year-old Kashmiri insurgency is once again coming to the boil. Two years ago the separatist rebellion — co-opted by Pakistani intelligence from the late 1980s — had calmed down. In 2009, tourists were returning in large numbers to Srinagar, and Indian troop levels were being drawn down. All that ended when the rape and murder of two local women in May 2009 — supposedly by members of the security forces, followed by what looked like an official cover-up — provoked mass riots. Things got worse in February when a 13-year-old boy playing cricket died after being struck on the head with a tear gas shell fired by Indian security forces.

The authorities have reacted with clumsiness and ruthlessness.