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| Thursday, 7 March 2002 |
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Thirty-two killed as gunbattles rage in India's disputed Kashmir SRINAGAR, India, March 5 (AFP) - At least 32 people, including 22 suspected Islamic guerrillas, were killed in clashes as separatist violence gathered momentum in India's troubled Kashmir state, a police spokesman said Tuesday. Three people were killed Tuesday as Muslim separatists holed-up in civilian homes exchanged heavy gunfire with Indian troops in northern Kashmir, the spokesman said. "A civilian, a militant and a policemen died in the encounter," he said, adding six security personnel were injured, including an Indian army major. The gunfight erupted late Monday after the police raided a hideout in Baramulla, 55 kilometres (34 miles) north of the state's summer capital, Srinagar. Indian troops in a separate raid Tuesday shot dead three Muslim militants in northern Kupwara district, bordering Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the spokesman said in Srinagar. He said another militant belonging to the hardline Jaish-e-Mohammed guerrilla group was gunned down in the neighbourhood by troops. Jaish is one of the two Pakistan-based militant groups India accuses of attacking its national parliament last December. India and Pakistan have amassed 800,000 troops on their borders after the attack as New Delhi blames Islamabad of supporting armed rebels in Kashmir. Islamabad denies the charge. Islamic militants also murdered four Muslim civilians in the Hindu-dominated southern Kashmiri district of Rojouri late Monday night, the official said. So far, none of Kashmir's two dozen Muslim rebel forums has claimed responsibility for the attack. In two separate clashes between Indian soldiers and guerrillas in Rajouri district, eight militants and four army personnel were killed late Monday. Seven more suspected rebels were gunned down near the Muslim militant stronghold of Naushera town, 425 kilometers (263 miles), south of Srinagar, and in nearby areas. Two more civilians, one of them a Muslim, and two heavily-armed militants were killed elsewhere in Kashmir over the past 24 hours, police said. The death toll from the fighting during the past 24 hours in Indian Kashmir is the highest in the disputed Himalayan region since January when Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf announced a crackdown against religious extremists, including those operating in Kashmir. More than 35,000 people have died in Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, since the launch of the armed Islamic rebellion against Indian rule in the state in 1989. India accuses adjoining Pakistan of arming and training the separatist guerrillas. Islamabad denies the allegations but openly offers moral and diplomatic support to what it describes as the Kashmiris' legitimate struggle for self-rule in the region. The two South Asian nuclear rivals have fought two of their three wars over the region since the subcontinent's independence from British colonial rule in 1947. |
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