Yusuf Jameel SRINAGAR, March 29 (1990): At least 16 people, most of them civilians caught in crossfire, were killed on Thursday during gunbattles in Srinagar between Indian security forces and secessionist Kashmiri militants, police said. They said 14 civilians and two paramilitary troopers were killed in firefights that erupted in seven places in the densely populated old city. It was the worst violence in Srinagar in more than four...

Yusuf Jameel SRINAGAR, March 28 (1990): Twelve militants opposing Indian rule in Kashmir have escaped from a maximum security jail, police said on Wednesday. A security check at midnight revealed only an empty cell, prompting a massive hunt through Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Moslem-majority state. There were immediate suspicions that the 12, all kept in one cell of Srinagar Central Jail, might have had inside help to get out of the heavily guarded...

Yusuf Jameel SRINAGAR, March 28 (1991): Twelve militants escaped from Indian-ruled Kashmir's maximum security jail on Wednesday and the prison staff was detained for questioning, government officials said. The escape from the jail, heavily guarded by Kashmiri police and Indian paramilitary troopers, prompted suspicions of inside help. "We are investigating the whole episode and the guilty will be severely punished," said one official. A "red alert" was issued across Jammu and Kashmir,...

ISLAMABAD, March 28 (1990): Thousands of Kashmiri refugees, fleeing an Indian crackdown on a Moslem independence campaign, have poured into the Pakistani part of their disputed state, state and party officials said on Wednesday. Many of the refugees, mostly young, complained of torture by Indian security forces who accused them of collaborating with militants who want the Himalayan state to be independent or joined to Islamic Pakistan, the officials...

JAMMU, March 27 (1990): Troops were called out and a curfew was imposed on the Indian city of Jammu on Tuesday after clashes between Hindus and Moslems. The clashes were the first in Jammu, winter capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, since a violent campaign against Indian rule broke out further north in the Kashmir Valley in mid-January. More than 200 people have been killed in the campaign, almost all in the Kashmir Valley. The valley has been under...

JAMMU, March 26 (1990): Flash floods have killed at least 69 people in India's northern Jammu and Kashmir state in the past week, police said on Monday. Six of the victims were in trucks which were buried under debris from landslides triggered by the floods on Saturday. Others were swept away by floods or killed by avalanches. The road between Jammu, the Himalayan state's winter capital, and Srinagar, the summer capital, was closed by landslides on Monday for...

SRINAGAR, March 25 (1990): A Kashmiri politician kidnapped on Friday was found dead on Sunday morning and Moslem militants fighting Indian rule said they had hanged him. Police said the body of Mir Ghulam Mustafa, 73, was found in a suburb of Srinagar, summer capital of north India's Jammu and Kashmir state. A man claiming to speak for the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen group told a local news agency by telephone: "We have hanged him." Police confirmed Mustafa had been hanged but further details were not immediately...

SRINAGAR, March 24(1990): A senior leader of the Communist Party of India was shot dead by suspected Kashmiri militants and gunmen abducted another  politician in Srinagar, police said on Saturday. They said two gunmen stormed the house of communist leader Abdul Sattar Ranjoor in Keygam, 30 miles (50 km) south of the capital, about midnight on Friday and shot him. None of the approximately 30 militant groups fighting for Kashmir has so far claimed responsibility for the killing. Police said Mir...

Yusuf Jameel SRINAGAR, March 24 (1990): A senior leader of the Communist Party of India was shot dead by suspected Kashmiri separatists and a Kashmir politician was kidnapped in Srinagar, police said on Saturday. They said two gunmen stormed the house of communist leader Abdus Sattar Ranjoor in Keygam, 30 miles (50 km) south of the capital, about midnight on Friday and shot him. None of the approximately 30 militant groups fighting for Kashmir's...

Yusuf Jameel SRINAGAR, March 23 (1990): The entire Kashmir valley was put under curfew on Friday to prevent Moslem separatists fighting for independence from celebrating Pakistan National Day. The government cancelled a regular break in the curfew which has been in force in Srinagar for the past three months and ordered people to stay at home in the rest of the valley. The police said the measure was to prevent celebrations planned by the separatists on Pakistan Day. More than 30...