Violence flares in Kashmir despite India's peace move
Violence flares in Kashmir despite India's peace move
NEW DELHI (Agencies): India prepared on Sunday for a month- long truce in its offensive against separatist guerrillas in Kashmir, undaunted by further bloodshed in the week since it announced the cease-fire.
Frontline groups have been skeptical about the planned suspension of the decade-long offensive for the Muslim holy month Ramadhan, which is expected to start on Monday or Tuesday depending on the sighting of the moon.
But while the Indian army set ground rules at the weekend for its troops, instructing them to stop search and destroy missions and retaliate only in self-defense, top officials met in New Delhi to discuss possibly building on the peace gesture.
"Ground is being prepared for (peace) talks but no formal initiative has been taken so far," Girish Saxena, governor of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, was quoted by The Tribune newspaper as saying after a meeting on internal security.
He told reporters the killing of 11 people in two separate slaughters since Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's truce announcement last Sunday was not unexpected, but the government wanted peace.
At Gurgaon on the outskirts of the Indian capital, the chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), a moderate separatist group, joined a U.S.-based mediator for a round of "track two" diplomacy on Kashmir.
JKLF's Yasin Malik, describing Vajpayee as charismatic and honest, told reporters the leader had the chance to emulate assassinated Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin's Middle East peace initiative if he would involve Pakistan in the peace talks.
"We will have to take every party into confidence," he said.
The pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen group announced a two-week unilateral cease-fire in July to consider a peace process but it collapsed after India refused to include Islamabad in the talks.
India says it cannot talk to Pakistan unless it stops arming and training separatists in "cross-border terrorism". Pakistan denies Indian charges of fomenting violence in Kashmir.
Goodwill
Meanwhile, another Kashmiri separatist chief Abdul Gani Lone has told Pakistani military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf that India's cease-fire offer to militant groups should not be rejected.
Speaking after a meeting with Musharraf here on Saturday, the leader of the Srinagar-based All Party Hurriyat (freedom) Conference (APHC) said Kashmiris believed the unprecedented offer was a "goodwill gesture," The Dawn daily reported on Sunday.
"I told him (Musharraf) that Kashmiris have termed the offer as a 'goodwill gesture' though they are of the opinion that this will not defuse the explosive situation in Kashmir or help in the holding of peace talks," he was quoted as saying by the daily.
Gani Lone's language contrasted with the belligerent rhetoric of the main militant groups, who have dismissed the proposed truce during the forthcoming Islamic holy month of Ramadhan as a "mockery" of peace efforts.
Pakistan has also described it as a decoy in India's larger plot to impose a military solution in Kashmir, a Himalayan state divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both.
Meanwhile, India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Sunday the government should firmly counter any violence by militants in Kashmir despite the month-long truce which starts next week.
"There should be no slackening in preparedness to tackle any violence," BJP party president Bangaru Laxman told a news conference in Bangalore.
The Indian army said on Saturday it had asked troops in Kashmir to resist provocations from guerrillas but maintain their vigil and self-defense.
Security forces would continue patrols, but systematic hunting of militants would be suspended, army officials said.