Posted on 01/21/2002 9:29:29 AM PST by AzJohn
JANUARY 21, 10:39 ET
12 Killed in Kashmir Village Raid
By BINOO JOSHI
Associated Press Writer
JAMMU, India (AP) — Attackers raided a remote village in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Monday, killing eight children and four other civilians.
State Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah blamed the attack on a police deserter who conspired with local Islamic militants to avenge a family dispute, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Abdullah said police have arrested three out of four suspects, but gave no other details, the agency reported.
Police had said they suspect a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group in the deadliest attack since Pakistan clamped down on extremists.
Two women and a man also were wounded when the attackers surrounded Salwa village in the Punch district, about 135 miles northwest of Jammu, the winter capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, said state police chief Ashok Suri.
The attackers forced their way into the house of villager Zakir Hussain, a Muslim, and started firing indiscriminately, Suri said.
The eight dead children ranged in age from six months to 12 years. Officials said two men and two women were killed, including Hussain's wife, who was nine months' pregnant with twins.
State Home Minister Khalid Najib said authorities were investigating whether Hussain's brother, who had worked with police but later joined the militants, could be responsible for the killings.
In another incident, police said two militants were killed Monday in an encounter with the Indian army in Chamalvas, 110 miles north of Jammu. Both were identified as top activists of the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed. Five army personnel were injured, two critically, they said.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Mukhtiar Singh said a top commander of another militant group, Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen, Ghulam Mohammed Gani, was killed Sunday night in a gunbattle with an army patrol in Jammu-Kashmir. Three other militants were killed Monday in separate incidents, Singh said.
Pakistan's government started a crackdown a week ago on Islamic militants based in its territory, and banned several of the groups that are fighting in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir to win independence or merger with Pakistan, including Jaish-e-Mohammed.
None of the dozen militant groups operating in Jammu-Kashmir claimed responsibility for the Salwa attack. The militants say they never target civilians. However, most of the tens of thousands of people killed in the 12-year insurgency are Muslim civilians.
India says Pakistan's army and spy agency have helped to train and arm the militants.
Pakistan says it provides only moral and diplomatic support to the guerrillas, but Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has said he would oppose terrorism in the name of Kashmir.
I had assumed that it was mostly Hindus.
I'm having difficulty reconciling your demographic factoid with the statement from the article I quoted, though.
In 1949, the decision to join India rather than Paks was the decision of then ruling Raja; not the population census. This is the basis for the Pak's claim on the land.
Thanks for posting this link. Very informative site.
In a ghastly fallout of an apparent family feud, a police deserter allegedly conspired with some local militants and gunned down 11 members of three Muslim families, including eight children and a woman, in a village in Poonch district on Sunday night.
Three of the four persons alleged to be involved in the killings have been arrested, Inspector General of Police (Jammu) P.L. Gupta said on Monday, adding preliminary investigations showed the motive behind the slayings could be a family feud.
Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah said in New Delhi that investigations showed that a special police officer of the state police, who had deserted the force a year-and-a-half ago, had conspired with some local militants to avenge a family dispute.
Earlier, a police spokesman said a group of unidentified militants, believed to be foreign mercenaries, swooped on Salva-Bherah village around midnight and shot dead 11 members of three families and wounded two others.
The armed men struck at three houses between 9 and 9.15 p.m. and killed 11 persons. Eight of them were children.
They first struck at the house of Zakir Hussain, a teacher. He was shot dead when he opened the doors responding to knock. His two children Abid and Rabiya were also shot dead. His wife Nazma Bi was among the critically wounded.
They also targeted the houses of Khalid Hussain and Jan Mohammad in the neighbhourhood of Zakir's house.
Late on Monday night, the police claimed to have arrested three persons in connection with the incident.
IGP Gupta, who visited the scene of the massacre, said out of four suspects, three had been arrested. He said a hunt was on for the fourth suspect, who is a former special police officer.
A case had been registered at the Mendhar police station and further investigations were on, Gupta said.
Minister of State for Home Khaleed Najeeb Suharwardy and State police chief A K Suri visited the spot.
Meanwhile, seven militants, including a self-styled battalion commander of the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen, were killed in separate encounters with security forces in the Kashmir Valley since Sunday night, a police spokesman said.
The Hizbul commander, Ghulam Mohammad Ganie was killed in an encounter with a joint search party of the army and the special operations group of the police in Baramulla district, the spokesman said.
I still want to know why most of the victims of the struggle are moslem while the percentage of moslems has dramatically decreased in the region.
Birth rates can't account for that.
You mean 'increased', right?
I can't put reconcile those facts for you. Actually, I seriously doubt the accuracy of the 60% Muslim-40% Hindu numbers someone on (this?) thread quoted.
But I'll tell you what I do know, for fact.
Hindus used to be a significant minority in the Kashmir Valley. Today, they are (almost) all gone. Most of them have left their homes for Jammu and other North Indian locales like Delhi. Jammu was, and still is, predominantly Hindu. However, the Muslim population of Jammu has also skyrocketed due to economic migration of Muslims from the Valley, seeking work. Most terrorist activity occurs in the Valley, which is now almost all Muslim.
As for who's dying.. Indian security forces are comprised of the army and the paramilitary border security forces. The paramilitary forces are known for their lack of restraint. Plenty of innocent Kashmiris have died, most of them Muslim, because of this. Muslim terrorists, on the other hand, will spray bullets into a crowd to get an Indian soldier. Plenty of Muslims die this way, as well. More Muslims die than Hindus because there are just so many more of them, and because most of the "action" is in the Valley and other Muslim areas.
Huh?
Why do you say this? I don't know if the figures in post #4 are totally correct, but I've never seen anything that says the Muslim population is significantly decreasing. Not that I know much about it, though, and all the sources seem to have a definite point of view.
I'm guessing there isn't a big demand for lawyers over there. Disputes get settled with distinctly un-legalese dispatch.
And what was the probable motive? Trying to quit the family?
Kill all the relatives (extra points for kids) of any wavering soul. Makes it kind of hard to quit the Mosque.
The info on this site is obviously one-sided, representing the view of the displaced Hindu minority. By far the majority of those killed in the Kashmir dispute have been the Kashmiri moslem civilians. While there have been sensational killings of Hindus by the Kashmiri (and foreign) militants, more people have died at the hands of Indian armed and police forces than any other group.
"Some 300,000 displaced Kashmiri Hindus were suffering abysmally in camps after fleeing Islamist violence in Kashmir. The extremist and terrorist organizations had launched a religious crusade against this ethnic and religious minority, and had been publicly taking pride for "killing Hindus" in the name of jihad. The displacement of the Kashmiri pandits had resulted in loss of homes, property, land, education, employment, and had caused immense social, familial, and cultural damage. "
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION CALLS ON ALL STATES TO PROTECT MINORITIES
I was reacting to the statement that someone said about the moslem population dramatically increasing, and I typed decreasing instead.
My bad.
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