SRINAGAR, Feb 11 (1990) – Troops searched from house to house Friday for pro-Pakistan Moslems waging a violent separatist campaign in Kashmir, and the government imposed a virtual news blackout.
At least 70 people, most of them Moslem militants, have been killed since the government began a crackdown Saturday to try to halt separatist violence.
Witnesses in Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state, said soldiers and paramilitary commandos of the elite National Security Guard were searching the city. Similar searches were reported in the nearby towns of Anantnag and Baramulla.
Many residents of Srinagar refused to switch on lights after dusk in protest of the crackdown.
Journalists were confined to a hotel and told they would be arrested, or even shot, if they stepped outside. They were denied access to telex and telephone lines after the warning.
In Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, Premier Sikander Hyat Khan of Pakistani Kashmir said he would launch a Moslem “holy war” unless the United Nations schedules a special session to address the Kashmir issue.
Muzaffarabad is the capital of Pakistani Kashmir and near the cease-fire that has divided the region between India and Pakistan since 1947, when the subcontinent became independent of Britain and the two nations were created. India and Pakistan have fought four wars, three of them specifically over Kashmir.
Most of the 5 million people in the Indian State of Jammu-Kashmir are Moslems. It is the only state with a Moslem majority in India, a predominantly Hindu nation.
“If the United Nations is not ready to play its role … I will tell them to go and fight,” Khan warned of the people in Pakistani Kashmir.
He gave the world organization until Feb. 17 to schedule a special session. He said the deadline coincided with a scheduled meeting all Pakistani political and religious parties in Islamabad.
Tariq Mahmood Butt, head of the student wing of the militant Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, said thousands of its members would cross the frontier Feb. 11 if the United Nations did not promise action.
Indian state television described the situation in Jammu-Kashmir as “by and large peaceful,” but said paramilitary troops fired on rioters Thursday in Handwara, 40 miles northwest of Srinagar. A government spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 11 people were killed and 14 wounded.
Troops in Srinagar tightened restrictions under the 24-hour curfew and prevented residents from opening windows, said witnesses reached by telephone.
From various vantage points in Srinagar, a city of 1 million, only heavily armed troopers and an occasional government official could be seen on the streets. Several people reached by telephone from inside and outside Srinagar said they had not heard gunfire.
Police sources in Jammu, winter capital of the state, said militants hurled a gasoline bomb at soldiers during house searches but no one was injured.
The increased security coincided with the Moslem sabbath and Republic Day, which major towns and cities in India usually celebrate with military parades.
Moslem separatists in Jammu-Kashmir, who want the state to be either independent or joined to Pakistan, declared the national holiday a “black day.”
Television showed Jameel Qureshi, adviser to the Jammu-Kashmir state governor, taking the salute at a parade in Srinagar’s Bakshi Stadium. No civilian spectators were shown and a policeman who was there said none attended.
District magistrate Ghulam Abbas told about 20 journalists at the Hotel Broadway: “If you go out of the hotel, you can be shot, and if we find out you have gone out, you can be imprisoned for six months.”
Soldiers with submachine guns were posted around the hotel, which is about a mile from downtown Srinagar. The door leading to the roof of the five-story building was locked and telephone service was halted after the warning by Abbas.
Seven journalists returned to New Delhi on a commercial flight Friday afternoon. They said police took them to the Srinagar airport by a circuitous route one officer said was designed to skirt trouble. Police at the airport confiscated dozens of rolls of film, they said.
The Moslem separatist campaign is as old as the two nations, but has escalated in recent weeks.
Srinagar and surrounding towns were put under 24-hour curfew Saturday and soldiers and paramilitary troopers were deployed. Their number has not been released, but is known to be at least in the hundreds.
