Raja Asghar
ISLAMABAD, Feb 9 (1992) – Pakistani police used batons and tear gas on Sunday to stop Kashmiri militants reaching a border village ahead of a banned march across a ceasefire line into Indian-ruled Kashmir, militant sources said.
They said police, who made several arrests, halted bus convoys at several places to prevent militants from reaching the village in Pakistan-ruled Azad (free) Kashmir.
The march, designed to show solidarity with Kashmiris rebelling against Indian rule, is being organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
At least 6,000 people have been killed in Indian Kashmir in the past two years as a result of a separatist campaign for independence or union with Moslem Pakistan.
The march would also mark the eighth anniversary of India’s hanging of JKLF founder Maqbool Butt.
Pakistan, which controls one third of predominantly-Moslem Kashmir, said on Saturday it would block the march, but the JKLF said up to 100,000 people would swarm across the United Nations- monitored ceasefire line at Chakothi, southeast of Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistani-ruled part of Kashmir.
“We are determined to cross over. We are firm in our objective.” A JKLF spokesman said on Saturday.
India often accuses Pakistan of fomenting and aiding the rebellion in the two-thirds of Kashmir it controls.
They fought two of their three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 over Kashmir.
The JKLF said about 100 coaches carrying its members to Muzaffarabad were stopped by police and paramilitary forces.
The police used batons and tear gas near the Pakistani summer resort town of Murree and near the Azad Kashmir towns of Kotli and Bagh, a JKLF spokesman said.
Buses carrying JKLF supporters were also stopped near the Punjab province town of Gujranwala, he said.
India said last week its security forces would resist the crossing. But JKLF chairman Amanullah Khan later said his followers were ready to die crossing the line if Indian troops opened fire to stop them.
Indian defence sources said on Sunday security forces have sealed the border between India and Pakistan in Kashmir to prevent the separatists from crossing the line.
They said troops took up positions along the disputed frontier to thwart the march.
