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| Tuesday, 3 June 2003 |
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Sonia assures support for peace BARAMULA, India, Monday (AFP) India's main opposition leader Sonia Gandhi offered her support for government moves to make peace with arch-rival Pakistan during a rally in disputed Kashmir. "I hope this latest peace initiative gives us a good result," Gandhi said behind a bullet-proof glass screen surrounded by special commandoes and policemen armed with automatic rifles. "We welcome it, and like on previous occasions I am assuring the central government of all the support to this initiative," she told 12,000 people gathered in Baramula, 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of Indian Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar. She said all sections in Kashmir needed to be consulted, including separatists. "We are hopeful that New Delhi will start sincere and continuing dialogue with all the sections of society and show sympathy in addressing their problems," she said. Her rally was seen as a response to an April 18 speech in Srinagar by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who stunned the New Delhi establishment by offering a "hand of friendship" to Pakistan. Gandhi's Congress party is in power in Kashmir in a coalition with the dovish provincial People's Democratic Party of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who also addressed the rally. "Congress has always held that whatever problems there are between us (India and Pakistan) should be resolved through talks and not through soldiers," Gandhi said to the applause of the crowd. Just hours before Gandhi's rally, security forces recovered a landmine some three kilometers (two miles) away, Baramula police official Reyaz Bedar told AFP. Police set up metal detectors at the rally site to prevent anyone from carrying arms or explosives. Gandhi is the widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was killed at a rally in southern India in 1991 by a suicide bomber affiliated with Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels. "I can understand your pain as I have also been the victim of terrorism," Gandhi said in a choked voice, referring to her late husband and also her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, a prime minister who was assassinated in 1984. |
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