Yusuf Jameel
SRINAGAR, Feb 7 (1992) – Eleven people were killed in the past 24 hours in Indian-held Kashmir as New Delhi stepped up pressure on Pakistan to ban a protest march across their tense ceasefire line in the disputed Himalayan territory.
Police on Friday said nine people, including at least five civilians, have been killed since Thursday night in incidents related to Kashmir’s two-year-old rebellion against Indian rule.
Witnesses said security forces killed two other men.
India, accusing Pakistan of fomenting the insurgency, said it had told world powers they must not hold India responsibile for any conflict if Pakistan allowed separatists to cross the ceasefire line in Kashmir on February 11.
India controls two thirds of Kashmir, over which it fought two of its three wars with Paksitan since independence from Britain in 1947. Pakistan holds the remaining third.
“It’s our hope that by the 11th (next Tuesday), Pakistan will get our message,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.
Pakistan has said it did not support the plan by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) to lead at least 50,000 unarmed people across Kashmir’s U.N.-monitored ceasefire line into the Indian-held part of the territory.
India, angered by increased Pakistani rhetoric in support of the insurgents this week, said this was not enough.
It said it summoned on Thursday the senior envoys in New Delhi of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council “to inform the world community…India has no responsibility in this at all. Let there be no mistake about that.”
The spokesman accused Pakistan of inciting what he called violence and hatred. “This kind of irresponsible action on the part of a country that happens to be our neighbour cannot be tolerated.”
In Islamabad, a senior militant source said Pakistan’s intelligence chief, Major-General Asad Durrani, had told the JKLF leader Amanullah Khan that Islamabad would stop the march at all costs to avert the risk of war with India.
But in Srinagar, JKLF military leader Jawed Ahmed Mir urged Pakistan “not to be cowed by India’s blackmailing”.
The Pakistan-based JKLF, which demands a reunited and independent Kashmir, spearheaded the insurgency two years ago.
JKLF militants have complained privately that Islamabad has shifted support to dozens of militant groups which have sprung up since to demand merger with overwhelmingly Moslem Pakistan.
