SRINAGAR, Feb 9 (1991) – Eight people were killed in a fresh flare-up of violence in Kashmir, where Moslem militants are fighting for secession from India, police said on Saturday.
Police said two of the dead, a young man and his girlfriend, were executed by Moslem fundamentalists who accused them of having an “illicit relationship” in defiance of Islamic tenets.
The two bodies were seen hanging from a tree in a village near Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state and hotbed of the anti-Indian rebellion.
A spokesman for the Hezb-ul-Mujahideen group said in phonecalls to Srinagar newspapers it had executed the couple after an Islamic court found them guilty.
“This should be seen as a warning. We cannot spare even our own people found violating the Islamic laws,” the caller told newspapers.
Hezb-ul-Mujahideen is one of scores of militant groups fighting for the state’s independence from India or merger with Pakistan, which controls a third of Kashmir.
Police said three people, including a 60-year-old woman and a nine-year-old child, died when they were caught in crossfire during clashes between militants and security forces in a small town near Srinagar.
Three people were killed during pitched gunbattles with Srinagar police on Friday night when thousands of people defied a government ban and demonstrated outside police headquarters.
More than 2,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since early 1990 when militants intensified their secessionist campaign.
