SRINAGAR, Feb 2 (1994): Four Indian paramilitary troops were among 15 people killed in overnight violence in Kashmir where Moslem leaders called for a shutdown on Saturday to coincide with a general strike in Pakistan.
Four paramilitary troops, seven Moslem rebels and four civilians died in separate gunbattles across the disputed Himalayan state since Tuesday, an official spokesman said Wednesday in this Kashmir summer capital.
Meanwhile, the All Kashmir Parties Freedom Conference, an apex forum of 27 Kashmiri political and Moslem militant organisations, called for a general strike across Kashmir on Saturday.
The forum said the scheduled shutdown in the troubled valley will coincide with a February 5 strike called by Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to express solidarity with Kashmiris of the northern Indian state.
“She is going all out to help Kashmiris and her efforts will be remembered,” a Freedom Conference statement said here. “We thank her for making the world community aware about the atrocities committed on Kashmiris by Indian forces.”
Bhutto has called for international pressure on India to withdraw its troops from the state and end what she termed “gross violations” of human rights.
Addressing a UN-sponsored human rights conference in Geneva on Tuesday, Bhutto urged the world community to end alleged rights abuse “reminiscent of the darkest days of the Holocaust.”
India has rejected Bhutto’s allegations and charged Pakistan in the Geneva conference of violating UN resolutions on Kashmir by “illegally” occupying a third of the Himalayan province.
