SRINAGAR, Jan 17 (1992): An Indian cabinet minister’s brother-in-law, held for four months by Muslim Kashmiri separatists, was freed with another hostage on Friday in exchange for three jailed insurgents.
The exchange took place in the home of a Srinagar carpet dealer in the presence of reporters.
Tassaduq Hussain, teenage brother-in-law of parliamentary affairs minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, was kidnapped last September in Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state.
He was freed along with Muhammad Shafi Khan, the brother of senior state government official Hameedullah Khan, who was kidnapped in November.
The Al-Omar Mujahedin, one of 20 Moslem militias fighting for the independence of Kashmir from Hindu-dominated India, claimed responsibility for both abductions.
Three Al-Omar men were freed in exchange for the hostages.
The carpet dealer, Nazir Ahmed Siddiqui, has mediated in several kidnappings.
The abductors of another kidnap victim, a Hindu scientist, threatened on Friday to kill him if five jailed militants were not released.
A man purporting to speak for the Ikhwan-ul-Muslameen, or Moslem Brotherhood, told reporters by telephone that director of the Central Regional Research Laboratory A.K. Dhar, kidnapped in Srinagar on Thursday, would be killed on Tuesday if the militants were not released by then.
The scientist was one of the few Hindus to stay on in Srinagar after the Moslem movement for independence or merger with neighbouring Pakistan began two years ago.
The revolt has killed 3,600 people, according to the government. Local journalists and hospital sources put the toll at 6,200.
