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Guerrillas attacks leaves 91 dead within hours |
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August 3, 2000
PAHALGAM, India (AP) - Eight attacks by suspected Islamic guerrillas opposed to a cease-fire in Kashmir have killed 91 people in less than a day in the territory disputed by India and Pakistan, police said Wednesday. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee blamed Pakistan-backed guerrilla groups for the attacks, saying they were reprisals against the July 17 cease-fire declared by the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, the main guerrilla group seeking Kashmir's separation from India. "It is clear that after Hezb-ul Mujahedeen's step and talks of a cease-fire, militant groups directed by Pakistan have decided to step up the attacks," Vajpayee told the lower house of Parliament. The attacks Tuesday night and Wednesday morning came as the Indian government prepared to talk to the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen to end violence in Kashmir, where more than 25,000 people have died during an 11-year Islamic insurgency. Witnesses and survivors of the first and worst attack - the shooting of 33 Hindu pilgrims and their porters at a riverside camp in Pahalgam - said paramilitary police and soldiers caused many of the deaths Tuesday night. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry condemned the killings and said, "On previous occasions, terrorist acts aimed at civilians have been carried out by renegade elements at the behest of Indian security forces to malign the Kashmiri freedom struggle internationally." India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir, which they both claim in its entirety. Two-thirds of Kashmir is controlled by India, and the rest is controlled by Pakistan. Up to a dozen groups are fighting the Indian military, and most have opposed the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen cease-fire, which was followed by an Indian army halt to offensive operations since July 18. On Wednesday, gunmen killed 12 people in the Hindu-dominated village of Pogal, and two Hindus in the adjoining village of Danvata, said Police Inspector-General S.P. Vaid in Jammu, the state's winter capital. Gunmen also stormed two houses in the nearby village of Hansraj Top and shot dead five people. Villagers armed by the government fought back a militant attack on Keyar village, but the guerrillas returned to kill eight people in the remote, densely forested area, Vaid said. In Kalaroos, armed men killed five relatives in the home of a special police officer, a member of a civilian unit armed and trained by the state government to fight militants, said Vaid.
There were three attacks Tuesday evening. Guerrillas swooped on the Mir Bazar village near Anantnag, forcing people out of their homes and separating women and children from the men, said a police spokesman in Srinagar, the state's summer capital. The men, brick factory workers who had migrated from other Indian states, were lined up and shot dead, the policeman said on condition of anonymity. Police said 19 people were killed. In Achchabal, militants stormed into houses and killed seven migrant laborers from eastern Bihar state, said Vaid. The first attack occurred Tuesday evening when gunmen opened fire on Hindu pilgrims and Muslim porters on their way to a deeply revered religious shrine at Pahalgam in the Muslim majority state. Police in Jammu and hospital officials at Pahalgam said the death toll rose to 33 on Wednesday morning, with 40 injured. Army and paramilitary soldiers fired back, killing the militants, police said. Ashok Bhan, the top official in the Kashmir police, said that weapons recovered separately from the bodies of the dead gunmen showed the markings of a militant group, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, that has condemned the cease-fire. The two bodies were clad in civilian clothes: shirts, pants and a windbreaker jacket. Some witnesses said that many were killed in the 20-minute cross fire by soldiers, and members of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force and men wearing khaki uniforms like the Kashmir police. There have been several previous cases of police in Kashmir blaming militants for attacks and the local people insisting it was government forces who did the killing. Bus driver Balbir Singh, who had brought pilgrims to Pahalgam, told The Associated Press. "I saw two men in a Kashmir police uniform who started firing from a bridge and on the bus. I saw two Hindu priests killed before me, and two other men." A forest guard, Farookh Ahmed, was one of several people who said that the Central Reserve Police Force killed civilians and dragged people out of tents to beat or shoot them in revenge for the militant attack. "The CRPF men forced us out and started shooting at us," Ahmed told The Associated Press. "I ducked and survived, two were killed in front of me, two were injured. Tourists (Hindu pilgrims) were not brought out and we were because we are Kashmiris." Mohammad Yousuf Mir, a bank employee, said, "CRPF people took out local people from tents and opened fire on them." Bhan, the Kashmir police commander, told the AP that "there could be a few cases" of CRPF attacks on civilians. "This cannot be ruled out. But there is no evidence that there was any excessive use of force by the CRPF." Shops were looted in the aftermath and people wandered around wailing as they searched for relatives and friends. There were bloodstains on the wooden bridges over the ice-blue Lidder River. The pilgrims were headed for the Amarnath cave, a religious site for Hindus in the mountains that takes two days to reach. The cave contains an icy stalagmite representing Shiva, the god of death who is worshipped for destroying a person's ego. Eight attacks that have killed 91 people in the Kashmir Valley: Tuesday: --The first and worst attack was at 6:45 p.m. in Pahalgam when guerrillas opened fire on Hindu pilgrims and their porters at a riverside camp near a religious shrine. Soldiers returned fire. Thirty-three people were killed, and 40 were injured. --Later that night, guerrillas swooped down on the Mir Bazar village near Anantnag, separating women and children from the men. Nineteen men were lined up and shot dead, police said. --In Achchabal, militants stormed into houses and killed seven migrant laborers from eastern Bihar state. Wednesday: --Gunmen killed 12 people in the Hindu-dominated village of Pogal. --Two others were killed by guerrillas in the nearby village of Danvata. --Gunmen then stormed two houses in yet another nearby village of Hansraj Top, shooting dead five people. --Villagers armed by the government fought back a militant attack on Keyar village, but the guerrillas returned to kill eight people, police said. --In Kalaroos, armed men killed five relatives in the home of a special police officer, a member of a civilian unit armed and trained by the state government to fight militants. |
