SRINAGAR, March 28 (1993): Torrential rain, heavy snowfall, flooding and avalanches have killed nearly 70 people in the northern Indian state of Kashmir during the past five days, officials said Sunday. A Kashmir government spokesman said that 69 deaths had been reported across the state, including those of three Moslem militants who drowned while trying to cross a fast-flowing stream to escape Indian troops. Moslem militants are waging a campaign for the...

JAMMU, March 26 (1993): Flash floods, avalanches and incessant rain have killed at least 49 people in northern state of Kashmir over the past week, state government officials said Friday. Thirty-six people died in house collapses across the state, while 11 people were swept away by avalanches or swollen rivers, officials said in Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir. Two people were struck dead by lightning. Some 5,000 travellers were stranded on the highway linking Jammu and Srinagar, Kashmir's...

MUZAFFARABAD, March 21 (1993): Commander Ahmad Hassan believes God will help Kashmiri militants to win their holy war, or jihad, against India even if their vital backer Pakistan bows to U.S. threats and stops giving them arms. "We did not consult America or Pakistan when we started the Kashmir liberation movement. We depend on Allah and with His blessing we will win this war," Hassan said in an interview. But the Moslem militants, fighting for four years to...

SRINAGAR, March 15 (1993): A leader of Kashmir's hardline Jamaat-i-Islami separatist group said on Monday that he was kidnapped by rival militants who later released him unharmed. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who disappeared from his hospital bed in Srinagar on Sunday, told a news conference that he was kidnapped by members of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) who asked him to mediate with another hardline rival group. Srinagar is the summer capital of Indian-ruled Jammu and Kashmir state. Geelani said he had...

NEW DELHI, April 12 (1993): India's main opposition party on Monday threatened nationwide protests if the government restored a "quasi independent" status for Kashmir in a bid to end Moslem militancy there. The Press Trust of India (PTI) reported meanwhile that 10 Moslem militants battling for the secession of the northern state and an Indian border guard were killed in clashes overnight and Monday. Lal Krishna Advani of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian People's Party) told reporters in...

NEW DELHI, March 11 (1993): The top administrator of Indian-ruled Kashmir has resigned after almost three years of trying to control a spreading rebellion by Moslem militants, sources close to the administration said on Thursday. Governor Girish Saxena flew into Delhi on Wednesday from Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, and submitted his resignation to the government of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. There has been no government announcement on the resignation,...

SRINAGAR, March 6 (1993): The killing of five civilians in an incident with Indian security forces in Kashmir sparked off protests in the state capital Srinagar on Saturday. Markets remained closed in the Himalayan valley, India's only Moslem state and the scene of a separatist uprising. Witnesses said the army fired on a ferry boat killing four people and the boatman in Sopore, a small township outside Srinagar after six soldiers and their officer were injured in a grenade attack by militants. But the state police...

NEW DELHI, March 3 (1993): Indian security forces shot dead 12 Moslem separatists in gunbattles in the northern state of Kashmir, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Wednesday. Five rebels were killed in Kupwara district bordering Pakistan, four militants in Baramulla region and three in nearby Anantnag late Tuesday, the news agency said. Thireen other rebels were arrested following the gunbattles, police said. One of them was a "platoon commander" of one of the militant groups fighting to secede Kashmir, India's...

SRINAGAR, March 2 (1993): Kashmiri militants on Tuesday rejected India's offer of talks and promise of more autonomy, and said that nothing short of independence would satisfy them. "We will never give up our armed struggle for complete independence, even if it means death for all our freedom fighters," Javed Ahmed Mir, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) said. India has been fighting a separatist uprising in Kashmir, its only Moslem majority state, where decades of simmering discontent against New...