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Sixteen Killed as Leaders Placed Under House Arrest in Kashmir
SRINAGAR, July 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Indian police said Friday that 16 people were killed in Kashmir, as two Kashmiri leaders were put under house arrest ahead of a peace summit between India and Pakistan this weekend, news agencies reported.
Four Muslim resistance fighters and four Indian army personnel were killed in a clash at Hanji Koot village in the northern Kashmiri district of Baramulla overnight, a police spokesman said, according to the French news agency AFP.
The encounter, which lasted eight hours, took place near the Line of Control (LoC) - the de facto border dividing Indian- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
Two Muslim fighters and an Indian army soldier were killed Friday near Kokernag, a picnic spot some 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Srinagar, AFP reported.
One soldier was injured in the incident.
Five other people, including three civilians were killed in separate incidents across the region.
Violence has surged in Kashmir ahead of the weekend summit between Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Those opposed to the summit from both the Kashmiri and Indian side fear the emergence of a back-door agreement to resolve the Kashmir issue without their involvement in the process.
Meanwhile, India placed a top Kashmiri activist leader under house arrest Friday to prevent him leading anti-Indian protests on the eve of the summit visit by Musharraf, AFP reported.
Police prevented Abdul Gani Lone, part of the seven-member executive council of Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Party Hurriyat Conference, from leaving his residence Friday morning.
"Lone was ordered to stay indoors and not to venture out," Hurriyat spokesman Altaf Ahmed told AFP.
Lone had been scheduled to address a news conference at the Hurriyat's headquarters in the Kashmiri summer capital Srinagar.
He was also to visit a graveyard on the occasion of "Martyr's Day", marking the shooting in 1931 of three dozen Kashmiris protesting the autocratic rule of Kashmir's then maharaja, Hari Singh.
"My program was very peaceful," Lone told AFP over phone, "I fail to understand why I have been placed under house arrest."
However, Lone said he would be allowed to travel to the airport later in the day to catch a plane to New Delhi, where he will attend a tea party at the Pakistan High Commission for Musharraf on Saturday.
Lone's house arrest coincided with a one-day strike called by the Hurriyat to mark "Martyr's Day."
The strike closed down shops, banks and business establishments in Srinagar, where traffic was thin on the roads.
Other Hurriyat executive members, including chairman Abdul Gani Bhat, held a press conference in New Delhi at which they dismissed New Delhi's anger over the fact that they had been invited to the High Commission to meet Musharraf.
"It has nothing to do with the summit's outcome. This is just an opportunity to meet the Pakistan[i] president and exchange ideas," Bhat said, quoted by AFP.
India had earlier pressed hard to exclude the Hurriyat completely from Musharraf's July 14-16 summit visit.
Members of the ruling coalition that govern India have consequently announced that they will boycott the reception to be held on Saturday, according to the BBC's online service.
The Indian government has ruled out any place in the summit talks for Kashmiri leaders. But the Kashmiris believe that any discussion on the issue would be meaningless without their participation.
In addition, another Kashmiri leader has been placed under house arrest in Indian-occupied Kashmir, a day before the summit, BBC online added.
Shabir Shah was due to lead a procession to commemorate "Martyr's Day". Shah, who heads the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Party, told the BBC that a large number of security personnel had sealed off his house in Srinagar.
Both India and Pakistan have repeated their stances on Kashmir in advance of the summit.
India says the territory must remain an integral part of the country, and insists it is not the core issue in the talks.
Pakistan says it is the central issue, and rejects any suggestion that it might accept Indian sovereignty.
Meanwhile, thousands of Muslim women in Kashmir have been regularly praying for the success of the Indo-Pakistan summit, AFP reported.
Mehbooba Nazir, who lost her husband and son in a bomb blast in the Kashmir capital Srinagar in 1997, has been visiting a Muslim shrine daily to pray for the success of this weekend's summit.
Nazir, 37, is just one of thousands of Kashmiri women who regularly pray for peace in the Himalayan region.
"Now that the summit is almost here, I am praying for its success with folded hands," said bereaved Nazir, quoted by AFP.
"I know what life without peace means," she added. "I have gone through turbulence."
"My life is never going to be same again," she said. "But peace can add color to other lives and that is what I am praying for."
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