Separatist groups in Indian-controlled Kashmir have raised strong opposition to the life sentences meted by Indian courts against two Kashmiri prisoners.

On Monday, a court hearing the charges of violations of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act (TADA) sentenced Nazir Ahmed Sheikh and Showkat Ahmed Khan to life imprisonment.

The two were charged with killing an Indian border guard officer in 1990. Sheikh and Khan were previously affiliated with an erstwhile militant group Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front ( JKLF).

Mohammed Yasin Malik, chairman of JKLF, has condemned the life sentences, charging that it was handed down by the TADA court as part of a "new Indian strategy to punish Kashmiris."

"It seems that the government of India has adopted a new strategy to crush the freedom struggle of Kashmir," said Malik. "I want to ask Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh why these Kashmiris were denied trial for 22 years."

According to Malik, the two had already completed more than 15 years in prison.

TADA was repealed in 1995 after allegations that the Indian police misused the law to indiscriminately arrest people. However, people charged under the law continue to be held and some have been tried.

In 2002, TADA was replaced by the Prevention of Terrorism Act ( POTA), but this law was also repealed two years later for similar reasons.

Reports say in the past one and a half year at least 20 Kashmiris have been meted life sentences by Indian courts.

Dozens of women separatist activists staged a protest on Wednesday in Srinagar City, the summer capital of the Indian- controlled Kashmir, demanding the release of Kashmiris detained in Indian jails.

The protesters were led by senior woman separatist leader Anjum Zamrooda Habib, head of Muslim Khwateen Markaz (Muslim Women Center).

"This is barbarism and injustice with Kashmiris who are being implicated in false and frivolous cases and made to rot in jails," said Habib. "It has to be stopped otherwise it could have serious consequences."

It has been a long-held view in Srinagar that a life sentence would correspond only to 14 years or 20 years in prison. Lately, however, this view has been altered after the region's high court dismissed a petition for the release of separatist Ashiq Hussain Faktoo.

Faktoo, the longest serving separatist prisoner, has completed 20 years in jail after being sentenced for life by a trial court.

"Life imprisonment means an imprisonment for the whole of a convict's natural life and does not automatically expire on his serving a sentence of 14 years or 20 years unless, of course, the sentence is remitted or commuted by the government in accordance with law," said the high court.

Legal experts say life imprisonment according to jail manual in India means imprisonment for 14 to 20 years.

Meanwhile, Malik has threatened to launch a massive protest against the court verdict and called for a shutdown in the region on Dec. 10.

"I urge people to observe complete strike on Dec. 10 against the government of India's new policy of imposing life sentences on Kashmiris, particularly those who have already spent half of their sentence in prisons," Malik said.

A separatist movement has been going on in the region since 1989 seeking an end of New Delhi's rule. Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan is claimed by both countries. Since their Independence from British, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.

JKLF favors independence of Kashmir and was the first to wage an armed insurgency against New Delhi's rule in 1989 in Indian- controlled Kashmir. However, in 1994, the group under the leadership of Malik declared a unilateral ceasefire and pledged to carry on the resistance peacefully in the political arena.

Malik has since renounced violence and rechristened himself as a Gandhian.

But Malik said that while the international community and India 's civil society have played an important role in persuading Kashmiris for a non-violent struggle, their credibility is now at stake with the recent development.