Tuesday, April 22, 2003
SRINAGAR, India (CNN) -- At least 22 people have been killed in Indian Kashmir in a surge of violence on Tuesday just days after India's prime minister called for talks with Pakistan and separatists to try and end the bloodshed over the
disputed state.
In Tuesday's biggest clash, Indian security officials say troops shot dead 13 suspected militants during a fierce gun battle about 255 km (160 miles) north of the winter capital, Jammu.
In another fight, four suspected separatists were killed in another shootout 80km further south. They were killed after apparently crossing into the Rajouri district at the line of control dividing the Pakistani- and Indian-controled sectors of the disputed region.
Also, police are investigating an earlier landmine blast near a crowded cattle-milking pasture in Tral, south of the summer capital, Srinagar, which killed five people and injured 10 others.
Police say militants probably planted the mine.
"It was an improvised explosive device planted near a field and was probably meant to target security forces," a police spokesman told Reuters news agency.
Additionally, nine security officials were wounded when their truck drove over a land mine that authorities believe was also planted by militants.
India says more than 37,000 people have been killed since the violent insurgency began in Indian-controlled Kashmir in 1989.
Vajpayee has hinted as negotiations with arch-rival Pakistan.
Both India and Pakistan claim the Himalayan region -- India's only Muslim-majority state.
The two sides came close to their third war over the disputed territory during a tense 10-month standoff last year.
Both sides say they are open for talks on the issue of Kashmir, which is largely behind the long-standing tension between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
On Saturday, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee made a conditional offer to negotiate with Pakistan on Kashmir and other key issues dividing the two nuclear-armed rivals.
Vajpayee said India would dispatch a top foreign ministry official to Islamabad to set a schedule for negotiations if Pakistan announces it would no longer support cross-border militancy and shut down guerilla training camps on its soil. (Peace talks)
Pakistan says it is ready for talks but denies there is any cross-border infiltration launched from its territory.
Islamabad says it only gives moral support to the Kashmiri people's right to self-determination.
India has also sent a government negotiator to Kashmir to explore the possibility of talks with separatist groups demanding the province's independence or merger with Pakistan.
Senior Indian officials plan to visit Washington in May, and two U.S. diplomats are to visit India the same month to discuss the issues.
16/04/2003 | ABC Radio Australia News
The outlawed Maoist group has been blamed for a landmine attack which has killed eight policemen and injured three others in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.
Authorities say the attack occurred in Nawada district, south of Patna.
They blamed rebels of the banned Maoist Communist Centre, a left-wing extremist organisation, of carrying out the attack.
The AFP newsagency says Leftist-linked violence is prevalent in Bihar, which is India's poorest state and one of its most caste-polarised.
Police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar say at least eight policemen have been killed in a landmine explosion in the district of Nawada.
They said that rebels from the outlawed Maoist Communist Centre were behind the attack.
Police said after the blast the rebels ran away with the weapons of the dead policemen.
Bihar has witnessed violent clashes between militias backed by rich landowners and landless peasants, the latter very often supported by the Maoists.
More than 300 hundred Muslim families are unable to resettle in Talaimannar because their homes are in minefields laid by the Sri Lanka Navy which are yet to be cleared despite 13 months of ceasefire, rehabilitation officials in Mannar said. Many Muslim and Tamil homes in the once bustling bazaar of Talaimannar Pier are still occupied by the Navy or lie within its security boundary. The area surrounding the local Mosque is infested with landmines and booby traps.
About 50 Muslim and 200 Tamil families have resettled in a section of Talaimannar Pier vacated by the Navy following the ceasefire. More than 300 Muslim families who are living as refugees in Kalpitty, on the island’s northwest coast, are quite keen to return to their homes and lands here, their friends and relatives say.
Only the narrow bazaar leading up to the beach by the Pier is now safe from landmines. Areas are marked off on either side with yellow tape and signs in red warning one of dangerous mines.
Only the entrance to the Talaimannar Pier’s Mohideen Jummah Masjeed Mosque is free of mines. A Swiss organisation called FSD is making an effort to de-mine the area, residents said. But progress is very slow, according to them.
Fishing has resumed. The area leading up to and surrounding the lighthouse and pier is still out of bounds for the public. One has to take a detour from the main road to the Talaimannar Pier bazaar and village.
The coast now receives a regular flow of Tamil refugees returning clandestinely from their camps in India. Most returnees from India are people who fled the fighting in Jaffna 13 years ago. Talaimannar is a regular destination because it is closest to the southern tip of Tamil Nadu.
Many Muslim and Tamil families in Talaimannar Pier have kith and kin in villages on the south Indian coast. In 1990 several of them went by boat to seek refuge in Tamil Nadu.
The Navy occupies 100 houses in Talaimannar Pier East and 15 shops and 50 houses in Talaimannar Pier North. The Talaimannar village itself lies about two kilometres south of the Pier.
Before the war started trains went over the long pier right up to the jetty where the ferry to India berthed. Hundreds of travellers thronged the busy Bazaar by the wharf as long as the ferry plied between the coasts of south India and Mannar.
Today the once active railway station is in ruins, overtaken by the ubiquitous Palmyra groves and thorn bushes. A few carriages lie abandoned by the dilapidated platform.
For more than a decade, Talaimannar was virtually cut off from the outside world and was firmly in the grip of the Sri Lanka Navy.
But communication with the outside world is resuming gradually. A bus service from Talaimannar to Colombo was begun recently. But bitter memories of a time when fear ruled the region are a still a heavy burden on the psyche of most residents. That the navy is continues to keep their homes has done little to ease that burden. So the people of Talaimannar are keeping their fingers crossed for now.
Source: TamilNet, 9 April 2003