Jammu And Kasmir

05-01-2006, 07:45 PM

Muslim don't know how to live in society and they call their religion of Peace.

QUOTEUnion Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said in Delhi that the attack was borne out of frustration by the militants over Jammu and Kashmir's gradual return to normalcy
Sure why they take out frustration on Hindu not on Union ministers.

05-02-2006, 01:49 AM

Mudyji,

QUOTE(Mudy @ May 1 2006, 10:15 AM)Muslim don't know how to live in society and they call their religion of Peace.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEUnion Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said in Delhi that the attack was borne out of frustration by the militants over Jammu and Kashmir's gradual return to normalcy
Sure why they take out frustration on Hindu not on Union ministers.
[right][snapback]50518[/snapback][/right]
</div>
This is Jaiswal at Leh Airport about a year ago: Jaiswal at Leh. You can google it out as to what he was doing in that picture. Does anyone even listen to such characters?

05-02-2006, 01:52 AM

QUOTEKashmir killings 
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Jihadis hit at soft targets ---- Though no militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing of 19 Hindus in Panjdobi and Thava villages in Doda district on Sunday night, and the slaughter of 13 Hindus in Ludana village of Udhampur district over the weekend, the savage massacres bear the unmistakable imprint of the Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.

Not surprisingly, the Inspector-General of Police, Jammu, has identified it as the perpetrator of the gruesome killings. The first large-scale killing of Hindus in the State after the gunning down of 24 Kashmiri Pandits in Nadimarg village near Shopian in Pulwama district in 2003, the ghastly attacks in Doda and Udhampur districts clearly indicate a sharp rise in the incidence of strikes by Pakistan-based Islamist groups, notwithstanding claims by the UPA Government that there has been a decline in Islamabad-sponsored cross-border terrorism.

That this should happen is hardly a surprise. They have reason to be angry. Despite their call for a boycott of the polling in the four Assembly constituencies in which by-elections were held last Monday, voter turnout averaged 61 per cent, with the highest (72 per cent) at Bhaderwah in Jammu and the lowest (40.34 per cent) at Sangrama. Not only that, the People's Democratic Front, whose chief, Ms Mehbooba Mufti, had suddenly started talking of Pakistan-based terrorists as "mujaheedin" and those killed in clashes with members of the security forces as "martyrs", lost in two of the three constituencies in which it had contested.

Pakistan-based terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Hizb-ul Mujaheedin had every reason to be upset with the voter turnout and results, which once indicated that the people of J&K, were fed up with continued cross-border terrorism and wanted a return to peaceful ways.

They, therefore, felt it necessary to send the message across that they continued to have the ability to hit hard and those who defied them did so at their own peril. They did it the way they have been doing it ever since cross-border terrorism assumed the dimensions of covert warfare over a decade-and-a-half ago - raise the level of terrorist attacks and strike at the softest possible targets, unprotected people in remote and isolated villages.

In the present case, they found it all the easier to do so because, with summer melting the snow in the higher mountain passes, Pakistan-based terrorists, who use these, could once again cross over to India without much difficulty. While terrorist strikes become more frequent every year with the advent of summer, the outrage has a particular significance this year because it shows that there has been no diminution of terrorists' ability to strike despite the tough measures that Pakistani claims to have taken against them.

This not only underlines the need for continued vigil on the part of the security forces but also raises serious questions about the sincerity of Pakistan's claim of fighting terrorism. Islamabad must be told categorically that the future of the entire ongoing composite dialogue process between India and Pakistan hinges on its sincerity in fighting fundamentalist Islamist terrorism and curbing acts of cross-border violence against India.

05-02-2006, 10:07 AM

PM may postpone proposed Pak trip

05-02-2006, 01:31 PM

QUOTE(Mudy @ May 2 2006, 10:07 AM)PM may postpone proposed Pak trip
[right][snapback]50535[/snapback][/right]


Death toll now 35...

**acharya** · 05-03-2006, 12:51 AM

Hurriyat seeks regular institutionalised dialogue with Centre

New Delhi, May. 2 (PTI): On the eve of the second round of their talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here tomorrow, Jammu and Kashmir's separatist amalgalm Hurriyat Conference today said it wanted institutionalization of dialogue with the Centre to solve Kashmir issue and regular holding of the exercise.

"We want institutionalising of the dialogue process with the Centre. By this, we mean that these talks should not be treated as yet another meeting with some separatists outfit but as a part of triangular talks between New Delhi, Pakistan and People of Kashmir," Mirwaiz Umer Farooq told PTI on his arrival here at the head of a six-member delegation for the talks.

He said there should be a regular interaction the Hurriyat and the Centre. "When we talk of seriousness towards resolving the issue, we expect a regular interaction with New Delhi as we do with Islamabad", the Mirwaiz said.

He said the Hurriyat Conference was not coming with a list of demands which could meet local demand but would present "our set of suggestions" for finding a political solution to the Kashmir issue.

"We want Kashmir to be become as a point of cooperation between India and Pakistan rather than point of conflict", he said.

Besides the Mirwaiz, other members of the delegation for the talks, being held after seven months, are Abdul Gani Bhat, Bilal Lone, Maulana Abbas Ansari, Aga Syeed Badgami and Fazal-ul-Haq Qureshi.

**acharya** · 05-03-2006, 08:42 AM

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Pakistan and India close to accord on trade across LoC

By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: India and Pakistan are close to an agreement on trans-Kashmir trade and a new bus service, possibly before Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singhâs visit to Islamabad.

An eight-member delegation, led by Foreign Office Director General Ibne Abbas, met with their Indian counterparts on Tuesday to finalise arrangements for the start of a âtruck service for tradeâ on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route, a bus service between Poonch and Rawalkot and the opening of the two meeting points on the Line of Control (LoC).

âWe covered a lot of ground on all items under discussion and are satisfied with the progress,â said Abbas.

The meeting also discussed the nature and number of products to be traded. Sources said that a dozen items had already been identified. âHowever, Pakistan has made it clear that the route will only be reserved for the movement of Kashmiri products,â they said. Islamabad has offered duty and custom-free movement of Kashmiri goods across the LoC as a gesture towards Kashmiri traders, they added. Why only Kashmiri goods Both sides have agreed that procedural details and modalities for travel permits will remain the same for the new services.

Sources said the Ralwakot-Poonch bus service might start by the third week of June. Earlier, both delegations had announced they would issue a time frame for these confidence-building measures in a joint statement today (Wednesday). Trucks laden with Kashmiri goods are expected to be on the road in the first week of July, added sources.

The proposal of establishing meeting points for day-long interaction between Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC was made by India last year. People living near the LoC were allowed to meet at five designated points in the wake of the October 8 earthquake.

India and Pakistan will now allocate two points each amongst themselves for the sake of their management. Special enclosures will be constructed for people to come and meet their kin.

05-03-2006, 08:58 PM

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' />
QUOTESiachen sellout

No nation in modern world history has vacated a territory it holds just to please an adversary. But that is what the Prime Minister, under US urging, is looking to do by pulling out of Saltoro Ridge, writes Brahma Chellaney

A weakness of almost every Indian Prime Minister has been to portray as path-setting any major foreign visit, especially if it is to the United States or either of the two adversarial States - Pakistan and China. No Indian PM usually wishes to return home to domestic problems without having signed a "momentous" agreement or having achieved some other "historic success" abroad. That in turn has meant making concessions on matters of vital national interest.Â Â

Now Manmohan Singh is itching to visit Pakistan, although he has admitted more than once in recent weeks that Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf has not kept his word to halt state support for terrorist acts against India. The terrorist bombings in New Delhi, Bangalore and Varanasi since last October have all been linked to front organisations of the Pakistani military's infamous agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence. The ubiquitous ISI has an octopus-like influence within Pakistan.

Without answering the question as to why he wishes to reward General Musharraf for his recalcitrant conduct by paying an official visit to Pakistan, the PM through his handlers has been seeking to prepare the Indian public for his next sellout - an Indian military pullout from the large Saltoro Ridge, of which the Siachen Glacier is a part. Official spinmeisters have conveyed the PM's lack of interest in "empty summitry" with Musharraf. According to them, the PM will travel to Islamabad if he can sign a major agreement, such as on "Siachen", a popular appellation for the entire Saltoro Ridge.

Again, obvious questions have gone unanswered. Why should India vacate a strategically located ridge whose control Pakistan has unsuccessfully sought to wrest militarily? To help Manmohan Singh achieve a "successful visit"? To express India's gratitude to Musharraf for his continued export of terror? To aid Musharraf's despotic hold on power at a time when he is increasingly becoming unpopular at home? To please the US, which wants India to bail out Musharraf through concessions on Kashmir and "Siachen"?

US President George W Bush has for long been taking India's help to make his pet dictator, Musharraf, internationally respectable. This assistance India has rendered continuously since it invited him out of the blue to Agra and helped end his quasi-pariah status. In the period since the Agra summit, India has come a long way, aligning its Pakistan policy more closely with the US stance. That only emboldened Bush to use Indian soil in March to applaud Pakistan as "another important partner and friend of the US" and to claim that India is "better off because America has a close relationship" with Islamabad.
Â
Today, on the three core issues - democracy, nuclear proliferation and terrorism - India, in deference to the US, is loath to put the heat on Pakistan. The PM speaks about democracy in Nepal but is silent on Pakistan. He has been a hawk on Iran and follows the US line in putting the importing state in the international doghouse while not once naming the exporting country (Pakistan) that admits illicitly transferring uranium-enrichment centrifuges and designs to Tehran. The PM's yearning to visit Pakistan testifies to his ambivalent stand on Pakistani-aided terrorism.

The desire to please America by pulling out forces from Saltoro Ridge only shows the costs India is beginning to pay for the vaunted nuclear deal with Washington. For the US, the deal holds multiple benefits - from getting a handle on India's nuclear-weapons programme and leverage on Indian foreign policy to opening the way to lucrative reactor and arms sales. Thanks to the deal, India can expect more of what it has heard in recent weeks - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's emphasis on maintaining an Indo-Pak "nuclear balance", and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher's rude demand that India "absolutely" define its deterrent in the sole context of Pakistan and enter into "mutual understandings" with that country "in both conventional and nuclear areas".

An Indian pullout from Saltoro is one of the "mutual understandings" that the US is encouraging India to enter into with Islamabad. Today, America actively promotes the Indo-Pak "peace" process, even though what India has got so far is not peace but more terrorism. Keeping Kashmir as a live issue and promoting the Hurriyat helps the US to leverage its Pakistan ties with India. In the hype during Bush's India visit, not many noticed that the visiting leader, with the Indian PM by his side, publicly demanded Indo-Pak "progress on all issues, including Kashmir".Â 

No nation in modern world history has vacated a territory it holds just to please an adversary. But that is what the PM, under US urging, is looking to do. What will India gain strategically by forfeiting its control over a key ridge located where the present frontiers of India, China and Pakistan meet? Will it persuade Pakistan to stop using the weapon of terror against India? Can India feel reasonably sure that Pakistan, with its vantage ground position, will not catch it napping by encroaching on the vacated ridge?

Yet a scripted media campaign has been let loose in favour of a Siachen settlement centred on a significant dilution of India's long-standing stance. The public is being told that a breakthrough can be achieved through an "innovative compromise" in which India accepts a military pullback from Saltoro Ridge without Pakistan agreeing to a mutually defined and demarcated Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL). An annexure to the agreement, however, will carry a reference to India's present ridge control. If that is India's definition of an innovative compromise, it is an open invitation to Pakistan to up the ante on all bilateral disputes.

The strategic objective of an Indian withdrawal has to be to end the dispute - not postpone a resolution to a future date - over the undefined line of control in the elongated Saltoro Ridge, the northernmost tip of the Indo-Pak border. A withdrawal without a formal Pakistani endorsement of the AGPL not only will rob India of the leverage it presently enjoys but will also undercut New Delhi's central aim to buttress the sanctity of a clearly delineated, inviolable LOC - an objective that determined the outcome of the 1999 Kargil invasion.

Just as the LOC in Jammu and Kashmir has internationally been accepted as the de facto but uninfringeable Indo-Pak border, a mutually authenticated AGPL will serve as the LOC's northernmost extension. In addition to a formal exchange of maps with the positions held by each side marked on them, both countries also should agree to pull back their troops to points from where it will take the same time to reach the ridge. The two armies cannot go back to the pre-1984 positions, as Islamabad wants, because that will place Pakistani troops at an advantageous position to occupy the ridge. A mutually delineated AGPL will largely measure up to the reference in the old Indo-Pak accord that the line from Point NJ 9842 shall run "thence north to the glaciers".

A pullout without such agreed terms will be tantamount to an unforgivable dereliction of duty that will put India's security in those icy heights at the mercy of Pakistan's good conduct. India's policy-makers ought to have absorbed by now the lessons of the loss of Aksai Chin to China, for which the country is paying long-term strategic costs. If Pakistani forces were to occupy Saltoro following an Indian pullback, they will link up with Chinese troops at Karakoram Pass, expanding the Sino-Pak land corridor. 

India should seek peace and tranquillity on a ridge where temperatures touch minus 40 degrees and where altitude sickness and frostbite have caused more casualties than bullets and artillery rounds. But in seeking peace, India must heed the Ronald Reagan dictum: "trust but verify". It will be foolhardy for India to pull out from Saltoro by reposing unverifiable trust in an adversary that has a record of taking it by surprise again and again.

Since independence, India has distinguished itself by reposing reckless trust in adversaries and then crying foul when they deceive it. One such "perfidy" hastened the death of Jawaharlal Nehru, who confessed to the nation the day the Chinese military invaded in 1962 that China had returned "evil for good". Another "perfidy" was recounted by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who in the Lahore Declaration allowed J&K to be singled out by name as a bilateral issue awaiting resolution. Then, a few months later, he bewailed in public that his "bus to Lahore got hijacked and taken to Kargil". When the Musharraf-led Pakistani Army encroached across a clearly delineated frontier into Kargil, it can easily intrude into an un-demarcated Saltoro Ridge. 

How often will India cry betrayal? One should trust a friend, not a foe. If India wishes to trust an adversary, that has to be backed by verification on the ground. As Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee himself said on October 7, 2005: "If we vacate the posts and they occupy them tomorrow, how do we establish before the international community that this was what we had?" That is why India had been seeking a mutually defined line of control on Saltoro Ridge. Why yield to Pakistan now when militarily it is in a hopeless position to wrest control of the ridge?
Â
Until the mid-1990s, Pakistan was less willing to reach a settlement because of its belief that the Indian military had put itself in an untenable position by occupying the inhospitable heights. Pakistan's attitude was to let the Indians stew in their own juices. Since then, Pakistan has seen how India has facilitated its hold over the ridge through firm communications and logistical lines. Pakistan now cannot even think of militarily displacing Indian forces, so it craves for a political settlement.

For India, there is little incentive to withdraw from the ridge, where a ceasefire continues to hold. In fact, India needs to leverage its Saltoro hold for securing peace beyond the ridge. A "Siachen" settlement can be part and parcel of a resolution of the Kashmir issue. Yet the PM has been floating fuzzy ideas. In mid-2005, for instance, he called for turning Siachen into a "peace mountain". Rather than search for yet another confidence-building measure with Pakistan, the PM needs to look at the "Siachen" issue strategically.

India has a history of surrendering at the negotiating table what it has won on the battlefield. India gave back Haji Pir to Pakistan under the Tashkent Declaration, and then under the Simla Agreement it returned both territorial gains and large numbers of Pakistani prisoners without securing a Kashmir settlement. Now, it should not give up its 22-year-old, hard-fought control of Saltoro Ridge in its search for elusive peace with Pakistan. After the self-injurious nuclear deal, a "Siachen" pullout will firmly establish the PM as "Mr Sellout Singh".Â

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' />

05-03-2006, 09:39 PM

QUOTEHEADLINE: ADVANI SAYS SIACHEN PULL-OUT WOULD BE A SELL-OUT
The BJP today said any ill-conceived pull out from Siachen would be a sell-out. Siachen cannot be treated as a stand-alone issue and any settlement should be guided by a sound strategic consideration of the countrys security and overall national interests, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Mr LK Advani told reporters here...

He claimed that news reports indicate that Dr Singh wants a settlement of the Siachen issue during his proposed Pakistan visit. The imminent settlement suggests the UPA government was thinking of pulling out troops from Saltoro Ridge. Under the innovative compromise being considered by the government, India will effect a pull out from the Ridge without Pakistan agreeing to a mutually defined and demarcated Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL), he said. Several think tanks and semi-official strategic affairs experts in Washington have been urging India to accept such innovations, the former BJP president claimed. Mr Advani said: The government should not gift away on diplomatic table what our soldiers have fought hard to gain in the battlefield.Â


Sellout or Spineless or tail wagging idiot or
Spineless had a very nice, corner, three storey white house in Amar Colony, He should go there and take rest and enjoy rest of his life.

05-04-2006, 12:51 AM

QUOTEDangers of Saltor demilitarisation 
Pioneer.com
G Parthasarathy |
There has been significant progress in recent months in expanding cooperation and reducing tensions between India and Pakistan, despite continuing incidents of ISI sponsored terrorism. The composite dialogue process, back channel and other contacts have led to an unprecedented increase in people-to-people contacts. A common ground is even being found in efforts to resolve the Kashmir issue, through greater interaction and dialogue, recognising that "borders cannot be redrawn". It would, however, be a Himalayan blunder if we are lulled into a sense of complacency and presume that the military establishment in Pakistan has become so benign that it would give up its efforts to "bleed India," or seek parity with India.

Remarks by National Security Adviser MK Narayanan and calculated leaks to the Press suggest that the Government is considering a precipitate withdrawal of forces from the Siachen region as part of deal with Pakistan on "demilitarisation" of the Siachen region. Such withdrawal would ignore the factors that led to distinguished Prime Ministers like Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao and Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee exercising caution and circumspection in approving proposals for demilitarisation in the region. The Siachen region lies on the Indian side of the LoC in Jammu & Kashmir. This territory has been defended by our Army, displaying immense courage and dedication.

Military commanders of India and Pakistan met in Karachi in 1949 and agreed on the precise location of the Cease Fire Line (CFL) in Jammu & Kashmir. The CFL was demarcated up to a point in the Kargil sector near the Shyok River defined as NJ 9842. The commanders agreed that beyond NJ 9842 the CFL would lie "thence north to the glaciers". As borders proceed along mountain ranges in such terrain, the CFL was, therefore, to move northwards along the Saltoro Range, to the west of the Siachen Glacier.

The CFL that was replaced by the LoC was strangely never formally delineated beyond NJ 9842. It was only after Pakistan tried to establish control over this area and sought to extend the LoC eastwards, to link up with China at the Karakoram Pass that Prime Minster Indira Gandhi approved plans for the Army to take firm control of the passes on the Saltoro Range in 1984. The Army has held these positions for the past 22 years in the face of relentless Pakistani attacks that ended only when the ceasefire across the entire LoC came into effect in November 2003. Pakistan eventually recognised that it could not overrun the Indian military positions in the Saltoro Range.

Several rounds of negotiations have been held with Pakistan to end tensions in the Siachen sector. The talks failed primarily because Pakistan refused to authenticate the Actual Ground Positions Line (AGPL) presently held by the two countries. The seventh round of discussions on the Siachen issue in 1998 enabled the Indian side to make it clear for the first time that the main issue was not the Siachen Glacier, which was well within areas under Indian control, but Pakistani attempts to dislodge Indian forces from the Saltoro Range, which was on the LoC, overlooking Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

The Government reached the conclusion in 1998 that given Pakistan's assistance to cross border terrorism and its propensity to seize Kashmir by coercive force, the only issues to be discussed on tensions along the Saltoro Range were: (a) A comprehensive ceasefire along the AGPL (b) A bilateral mechanism to ensure the cease fire was respected and Â© Authentication of existing ground positions. The then Defence Secretary Ajit Kumar declined to consider the issue of pulling back Indian forces from the strategic heights of the Saltoro range.

Both Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao eventually concluded that by supporting cross border terrorism Pakistan had violated the provisions of the Simla Agreement. Pakistan could, therefore, not be trusted to keep its word on respecting the sanctity of a zone of demilitarisation in the Siachen region. No one with even a rudimentary knowledge of the propensities of the Pakistani military would have backed any scheme for demilitarisation that placed Indian forces at a strategic disadvantage. Besides, the Kargil conflict engineered by General Pervez Musharraf only confirms that what Pakistan army could not take in war from India in the past, will be sought to be acquired by subterfuge, stealth and low intensity conflict.

There are now indications that New Delhi is having negotiations with Pakistan that will involve a pull back of Indian forces from the strategic heights of the Saltoro Range and the establishment of an extensive demilitarised zone. There is also talk of a "peace park" in the demilitarised area.Â <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /> The Government appears to be even willing to pull back without Pakistan formally and irrevocably agreeing to specify the location of the Actual Ground Position Line along the Saltoro Range, both in the text of a main agreement and in appended maps. Such "compromises" are said to be necessary to bail out an embattled Gen Musharraf, who acknowledges that his personal popularity in Pakistan is waning.Â <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' />

It would be virtually impossible, after any such withdrawal, to retake these areas, if the Pakistan army chooses to intrude and capture the heights in the Saltoro Range, as it did in Kargil. Is it prudent or wise to trust a dispensation that harbours and assists those who behead an Indian engineer in Afghanistan, and refuses to abide by its commitment of January 6, 2004, to end support for terrorism on its soil, on an issue involving India's territorial integrity?

The Saltoro issue needs widespread parliamentary and public debate. It should not be dealt with behind a veil of secrecy. There should be no pull back from positions of strategic advantage in the Saltoro Range, unless Pakistan agrees to authenticate existing ground positions and foolproof mechanisms are devised to ensure verification and prevention of a Kargil type intrusion in the future. As the Defence Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee stated: "If we vacate the posts and they occupy them tomorrow, how do we establish before the international community that this was what we had"?

In any case, a pull back from the Saltoro Range should take place only when agreement on a framework for a final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir is reached and inked. Pakistan's then Foreign Secretary Shahryar Khan had, after all, proclaimed in November 1993 that the Kashmir and Siachen disputes were linked and could not be discussed and negotiated separately.

05-10-2006, 12:34 AM

Troops in J&K to be increased: MukherjeeQUOTETroop presence in Jammu and Kashmir will be "numerically enhanced" to deal with the increased terrorist violence in remote areas and sophisticated weapons provided to village defence committees to make them capable of staving off militant attacks, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Jammu on Tuesday.

"The situation in the state is under constant review and if attacks by terrorists on soft targets continue, we will numerically enhance troop presence," Mukherjee said after wittnessing emotional scenes at Tawa village in Doda and Basantgarh in Udhampur district where terrorists gunned down 32 Hindus last week.
.......

Four top militants shot dead in J&K

05-10-2006, 09:26 AM

QUOTEhttp://www.rediff.com/news/2006/may/09guest1.htm
What will it take, Mr Prime Minister?
- Lalit Koul
January 25/26, 1997: 25 at Wandhama-Ganderbal
March 20, 1997: 7 at Sangrampura
April 18, 1998: 27 at Prankote
June 19, 1998: 25 at Chapnari
July 28, 1998: 16 in two villages of Doda district
August 8, 1998: 35 at Kalaban
February 20, 1999: 4 at Muraputta, 9 at Barlyara and 7 at Bllala
June 30, 1999: 15 in Anantnag district
July 19, 1999: 15 at Layata
February 28, 2000: 5 near Qazigund
March 20, 2000: 35 at Chatisinghpora
August 1, 2000: 31 Amarnath Yatris at Pahalgam
August 1-2, 2000: 27 in Qazigund and Achabal
August 2, 2000: 11 in Doda district
February 3, 2001: 6 in Mahjoornagar in Srinagar
February 11, 2001: 15 in Kot-Chadwal
March 2, 2001: 15 in Manjkote
March 17, 2001: 8 near Atholi in Doda
July 21, 2001: 13 including 7 Amarnath pilgrims at Sheshnag
July 22, 2001: 12 in Cheerji and Tagood in Doda district
August 4, 2001: 15 in Ludder-Sharotid Har area in Doda district
January 7, 2002: 17 in Ramsoo
February 17, 2002: 8 in Rajouri
March 30, 2002: 12 at the Raghunath temple in Jammu
May 14, 2002: 32 at the army camp in Kaluchak, Jammu
July 13, 2002: 20 in Kasim Nagar, Jammu
August 6, 2002: 9 Amarnath pilgrims at the Nunwan base camp in Pahalgam
August 24, 2002: 10 in Rajouri
November 24, 2002: 14 at the Raghunath Temple in Jammu
March 24, 2003: 24 in Nadimarg
April 29, 2005: 13 in Udhampur district
April 30, 2005: 22 in Doda district

05-10-2006, 09:17 PM

Two Pakistani terrorist killed near LoC in Poonch

Bharatvarsh · 05-13-2006, 11:47 PM

QUOTEFriday, May 12, 2006Â Â

Suspected militants kill 9 people in AJK

By Nadeem Ahmed Siddiqi

MIRPUR: Suspected militants have slaughtered nine people in Kotli and Mirpur districts of Azad Kashmir over the last two weeks.

Those murdered include, women and children, said Ishaq, a resident of Kotli. The killings could be described as acts of terrorism, he said, suspecting that the killers were Indian agentsÂ <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /> or terrorists trained in Afghanistan. He said that forces behind such acts were against the Pakistan-India peace process, reunion of Kashmiris and opening of the Line of Control (LoC). He said that the killings had spread panic among local people, who were now keeping arms with them for personal security.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...2-5-2006_pg7_40
QUOTECable TV in Kashmir off air againÂ

Cable television operators in Indian administered Kashmir have gone off air again following fresh threats by militant groups, operators say.Â

They had resumed programming on Thursday after threats led to a 24-hours suspension of operations.

The operators say four militant groups issued serious threats again.

Groups including the Al-Madina Regiment, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Ah-Badar Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen say that cable TV programming is obscene.

They have threatened suicide attacks against cable operators who defy their ban.

Police protection

A cable operator told the BBC that they resumed their operations on Thursday following assurances from some militant organisations and hardline leaders.

"We resumed programming after assurances by Hizbul Mujahideen militant group, a hardline female leader Asiya Andrabi and [hardline separatist leader] Syed Ali Shah Geelani."

The groups issuing the threats have dismissed the argument of the main Kashmiri militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen, which argues that the ban on cable TV was orchestrated by the Indian authorities to distract public attention from a sex scandal involving high-ranking government officials.

The Hizbul Mujahideen claim was supported by the Dukhtaran-e-Milat women's organisation.

On Wednesday, the owner of the main cable TV company in Srinagar told the BBC that the decision to stop programming was taken after several of their offices in the city were visited by militant groups complaining about the "depraved" nature of their output.

Ahmed Amjad said that his staff were not receiving sufficient police protection.

Forty channels were affected, including Star Movies, AXN, Reality TV and Star World.

Correspondents say that cable TV is valued by some Kashmiris as a way of escaping the horrors of an insurgency by militants opposed to Indian rule.

But there has been disquiet in recent weeks over the "indecent" nature of some of the broadcasts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4764621.stm

Bharatvarsh · 05-14-2006, 12:03 AM

QUOTE J&K: 2 killed, nearly 15 injured in grenade blast in Doda

Jammu, May 13 (PTI) Two persons were killed and nearly 15 others injured, some of them seriously, when unidentified ultras hurled a grenade at a bus stand in Doda town of Jammu and Kashmir today, police sources said here.

A protest rally against militancy was organised by BJP at the bus stand before the grenade explosion at 1125 hours.

People ran helter-skelter after the explosion, they said. About 15 to 20 people received splinter injuries.

However, two of the seriously injured, whose identity is yet to be ascertained, succumbed to their injuries, the sources said adding the injured have been rushed to a hospital for treatment.

Senior police and security officials of the district have rushed to the spot to take stock of the situation. PTIÂ

http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/&#0...B0?OpenDocument

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 05-15-2006, 08:57 AM by acharya.)

Righteousness, religion, and right-wing politics

Praveen Swami

The protests seen in Srinagar after the uncovering of a prostitution ring illustrate complex cultural anxieties â not just anger over a single crime.

"LONG LIVE Pakistan," chanted the hundreds of young men who, armed with axes and crowbars, had gathered to demolish Sabina Hamid Bulla's home in downtown Srinagar on May 5, "we want freedom!"

Watched by television audiences across India, the protests Srinagar has witnessed this past fortnight after the uncovering of Ms. Bulla's prostitution ring have all the elements so beloved of prime-time news: sex, scandal, and sleaze in high places. Despite the saturation coverage, though, the political content of the protests has not been subjected to serious examination. Who, for one, participated in the protests? And why the violence and the anti-India polemic?

Last month, residents of Srinagar complained to the police about two 30-second pornographic video clips, which had been circulating from mobile phone to mobile phone. A 16-year-old girl was then detained. In an unsigned statement to the police, the girl said Ms. Bulla supplied her and 43 other women with drugs and cash for having sex with two State Ministers, both affiliated to the Congress, a Border Security Force officer, ten policemen, and several well-known businessmen.

Given that the girl is a minor, the charge against the men she has named is unambiguous: rape. Central Bureau of Investigations officials â who took charge of the case before the street protests began â have a tough mission. They will have to persuade the girl to repeat her charges in court. Then, corroboration will have to be found for the charges. Given the influence of the alleged rapists, neither task will be easy.

A heinous crime? Without dispute. But the young men who brought down Ms. Bulla's home did not just chant slogans against the rapists. Instead, they claimed Ms. Bulla represented a larger Indian conspiracy to corrupt womanhood in Kashmir. One articulation of this position, widely held on the Right, has come from the scholar Hameeda Nayeem, who in a recent article made the extraordinary claim that the evidence points "unequivocally towards a policy-based state patronage [of prostitution]."

What underpins this paranoiac understanding of events? For an answer, we must turn to the class basis of anti-India mobilisation in Jammu and Kashmir. Old city areas such as Srinagar's Ban Mohalla or Batmaloo, the catchments for the May 5 mob, are home to the city's petty bourgeoisie â to the bazaar trading class, which had neither the educational skills nor capital to benefit from Jammu and Kashmir's changing post-Independence economy. Many of the men who joined the ongoing jihad came from this social group.

Soon, this class found allies in the new elites thrown up by post-Independence development. Empowered by economic growth and education, groups such as orchard owners, large traders, and elements of the legal and State bureaucracy gained wealth and influence. However, political power was denied to them because of the peasant foundations of Kashmir's politics. Islam and tradition became weapons through which the new class alliance asserted its right to speak for all of Kashmir.

The politics of virtue

Righteousness, religion, and right-wing politics frequently intersected in the course of this class alliance's struggle for power. The 1989 protests leading up to the proscription of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses â a book that, fittingly enough, interrogates our ideas of virtue â is perhaps the best known instance. One person was killed during the rioting, and at least five dozen injured.

To understand the multiple struggles contained within the protests in Srinagar, though, we must reach further into the past.

In May 1973, a student in Anantnag was appalled by an image he saw while leafing though an old encyclopaedia stored in the local library. Arthur Mee's Book of Knowledge depicted the Archangel Gabriel dictating the text of the Quran to Muhammed, a violation of Islamic edicts prohibiting the representation of the Prophet through graven images. When clerics in Anantnag learned of the picture, however, it was denounced as blasphemous. College students in Anantnag went on strike, and the protests soon spread to Srinagar.

Protestors demanded that the author of the encyclopaedia be hanged. It was "a vain demand," Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's biographer Katherine Frank has wryly noted, "since Arthur Mee had died in England in 1943." The Government of India banned sales of the encyclopaedia, which was also a futile gesture since it was no longer in print. However, the protests continued, and the police eventually opened fire to disperse the violent crowds, leading to four fatalities.

How does one account for the extraordinary outrage provoked by the Book of Knowledge? The protests need to be read against the slow but steady growth of the Jamaat-e-Islami from the 1950s onwards. As the scholar Yoginder Sikand has pointed out, the Jamaat-e-Islami had set up a wide network of schools to counteract what it believed was "an Indian onslaught in the cultural sphere" because of which "many young Kashmiris had begun to lose their Islamic moorings."

Sikand has recorded the Jamaat's belief that "a carefully planned Indian conspiracy was at work to destroy the Islamic identity of the Kashmiris, through Hinduising the school syllabus and spreading immorality and vice among the youth." It was even alleged that "that the government of India had dispatched a team to Andalusia, headed by the Kashmiri Pandit [politician] D.P. Dhar, to investigate how Islam was driven out of Spain and to suggest measures as to how the Spanish experiment could be repeated in Kashmir, too."

Such communal paranoia, then as now, served an express political purpose. Sikand cites one Jamaat-e-Islami insider as suggesting that its schools were "set up in order to lead a silent revolution, to keep alive the memory of Kashmiri independence and of India's brutal occupation of the State."

To Islamists across Jammu and Kashmir, the protests against the Book of Knowledge would have signalled that, notwithstanding the defeat of Pakistan in 1971, the war against India would continue apace.

By 1987, the social coalition underpinning these mobilisations had acquired a political platform, the Muslim United Front. At a March 4, 1987, rally in Srinagar, MUF candidates, clad in the white robes of the Muslim pious, declared that Islam could not survive under the authority of a secular state, and that Farooq Abdullah was an agent of Hindu imperialism. MUF leaders had initiated their campaign by protesting against the sale of liquor and violating State rules prohibiting cow slaughter.

Over the past several months, many mobilisations have drawn on this tradition. In February this year, protests broke out across much of the world over caricatures of the prophet, which were published in the Dutch newspaper Jyllands Posten. However, in Kashmir, the protests took a region-specific idiom. Protestors at All Parties Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's demonstration against the cartoons, for example, chanted slogans in support of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, besides Pakistan.

Writing a month before the ongoing protests in the Srinagar-based newspaper Greater Kashmir, the leader of the Islamist Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Asiya Andrabi, had wondered what would happen if "Muhammed (S.A.W.) will come to know that the Muslim youth of Kashmir are busy in vulgarity, obscenity, waywardness?" She attacked "young Muslim girls who have lost their identity of Islam and are presenting the look of a Bollywood actress but not Fatima and Aisha (R.A.) [respectively, Muhammed's daughter and sister]."

The pious are now acting on Ms. Andrabi's call. On May 7, almost 200 seminary students, led by the cleric Mohammad Riyaz, marched in a procession demanding an end to "vulgarity, waywardness and immoral activities."

The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen has demanded that restaurants dismantle private cabins meant for couples, while the al-Madina Regiment, a terrorist consortium that has carried out several grenade attacks, has successfully ordered an end to cable television broadcasts.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the war against vice and the war against India have long gone together. Since 1988, Islamist terror groups have repeatedly attacked bars, stores stocking liquor, beauty parlours, and movie theatres.

Even the supposedly secular cadre of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front participated in these campaigns. Women have been ordered to abandon public performance, wear veils, and sit apart from men on buses. Defiance has, on occasion, been punished with acid â and even bullets.

Just like the rape of the 16-year-old at the centre of the political storm in Srinagar, each of these stories constitutes a horrible tragedy. None of those who have staged protests â not the men who ransacked Ms. Bulla's home, nor the erudite lawyers of the Kashmir Bar Association, which is a constituent of the Islamist faction of the APHC â has ever chosen to speak on these acts of violence. Neither, indeed, have they even once mobilised against the crimes women face each day in and outside their homes.

While the political idiom of the Kashmir protests is distinct, though, it is worth noting that their themes â sexuality, tradition, and social control â reflect region-wide anxieties. The sometimes merciless interrogation of our values by modernity has provoked protests in States as disparate as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat. At their core, the Srinagar protests compel consideration of just why it is that our societies conflate their collective honour with women's bodies.

Bharatvarsh · 05-16-2006, 01:53 AM

From Daily Pioneer:
QUOTETerror hits BJP rally in Doda by Mohit Kandhari

Two Bharatiya Janata Party workers were killed and at least 35 injured when terrorists hurled a powerful grenade on a party procession near the Doda bus stand on Saturday.

Tension gripped the hilly district after the incident as the town observed near total bandh in protest.

For almost an hour, doctors at the Doda district hospital had to halt work as BJP workers stormed the hospital demanding better treatment facilities to the injured. Later, the district administrative officers brought the situation under control.

While most State BJP leaders rushed to the spot, former BJP chief LK Advani is expected to arrive on Sunday to take stock.

Since May 1, BJP workers had been protesting the killing of 19 Hindus at Kulhand in Doda and demanding better security in the area besides automatic weapons for members of the village defence committees to counter militant attacks.

State BJP general secretary Bali Bhagat who was participating in the demonstration said BJP workers and Kulhand residents were marching towards the bus stand when they were attacked by militants at 11.25 am.

Several BJP workers and by-standers were injured. Bharat Bhushan of Doda and Basant Ram of Batote died at the hospital. Seven others were shifted to the Jammu Medical College in a critical condition.

BJP leaders claimed the incident took place because no police protection was provided to processionists. Jammu IG, SP Vaid, said no militant group had taken responsibility for the attack.

One of the injured Bodh Raj who received splinter injuries in his eye said: "As we were going towards the bus stand, a powerful explosion took place. For a minute everything went black."

State BJP vice-president Prof Hari Om condemned the grenade attack and demanded President's rule in the State on grounds that militants were getting support from the State Government and its civil and police authorities.

Despite assurances by the Congress-led UPA Government at the centre and by Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, no Army pocket had been established in the sensitive areas of Doda and Udhampur districts where minorities are gripped by fear following the May 1 massacre of 32 Hindus in Kulhand.

At New Delhi, party president Rajnath Singh said the party was outraged over the attack and would launch a nationwide stir against UPA's failure to counter Pak-sponsored terrorism.

Bharatvarsh · 05-16-2006, 01:58 AM

QUOTEJ&K: Militants kill four by slitting their throats

Srinagar, May 15 (PTI) Militants slit the throats of four persons after abducting them from Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said today.

Throat-slit bodies of Ghulam Qadir Lone and Mumtaz Ahmad were recovered by police from Aragam on the outskirts of their Chati-Bandi village in Bandipora area of the district today, the sources said.

They said the duo were abducted by the militants from the village yesterday.

However, the fate of two more abducted persons, constable Mushtaq Ahmad of India Reserve Battalion and Javed Ahmad, was not known. The two were abducted by militants from the same village on May 7.

Police recovered bodies of two more persons identified as Mohammad Maqbool War, a resident of Soyan, and Nazir Ahmad Bhat of Handwara from village Batpora in Rafiabad of Baramulla this morning, the sources said.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the duo, both shopkeepers, were abducted by militants and killed by slitting their throats on the suspicion of being "informers" of the security forces, the sources said. Bhat was said to be a former militant who had given up violence.

No militant outfit has so far claimed responsibility for the killings. PTI

http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/&#0...90?OpenDocument

Bharatvarsh · 05-16-2006, 02:05 AM

QUOTENo demilitarisation in J&K: Govt assures Parliament
New Delhi, May 15 (PTI) Government today ruled out demilitarisation or reduction of force in Jammu and Kashmir but said it would continue dialogue those who abjure violence and other responsible groups to bring peace in the state.

"There is no question of demilitarisation... Nor withdrawal of forces... It can only be considered if there is peace and tranquility (in J&K). Instead of cutting down forces, we are strengthening the forces by recruiting heavily, Home Minister Shivraj Patil said intervening in a debate on a BJP-sponsored adjournment motion on the killings in Doda earlier this month.

Giving an identical reply to the discussion on the issue in the Rajya Sabha, Patil made it clear that redeployment of forces did not amount to reduction in forces. There was no question of withdrawal of forces nor demilitarisation until terrorism ends.

The motion in the Lok Sabha was moved by Leader of the Opposition L K Advani who charged the Government with failure to protect the lives of citizens in border areas of Jammu and Kashmir.

The motion was rejected by a voice vote.

Asserting that Government would do its duty in combating terrorism, Patil said "there is a problem and we have to solve it... There may be mistakes here and there but we have to find a solution." Explaining government's multi-pronged strategy in dealing with the Kashmir issue, including engaging in dialogue "responsible" individuals and groups, Patil said the dialogue process would continue.

Earlier in the day, the issue saw acrimony in both the Houses leading to several adjournments. PTI

http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/&#0...02?OpenDocument

05-16-2006, 02:08 AM

QUOTEAt their core, the Srinagar protests compel consideration of just why it is that our societies conflate their collective honour with women's bodies.

I wonder what was the need for this concluding statement from the article above. It seems like a pretty pathetic attempt at pulling an equal-equal from the poterior.. But then maybe Praveen Swami didnt write it, and the politburo at the hundi decided to sneak it in.

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