SRINAGAR, June 30 (1995): At least 16 children were injured Friday when a powerful bomb ripped through an Islamic orphanage near this Kashmir summer capital, the urban hub of a Moslem secessionist drive, police said. They said the children were shifted to a hospital after the attack, adding that two were criticially injured in the pre-dawn blast which coincided with the Moslem sabbath. Witnesses said Indian troops sealed the area and arrested the staff of the school-cum-orphanage in the town of Harwan, 20 kilometres...

SRINAGAR, June 28 (1995): Thirteen militants were among 25 people killed overnight in secessionist-linked violence in the troubled northern state of Kashmir, the Press Trust of India said Wednesday. Officials in the state summer capital Srinagar said 13 Moslem rebels were killed and 26 arrested when they tried to cross into India late Tuesday from Pakistan-administered Kashmir in the Kupwara district. They said patrolling had been intensified following the fierce firefight with the rebels, allegedly trained by...

SIACHEN GLACIER,June 23 (1995): In the thin air of the majestic Karakoram mountains, Pakistani and Indian troops are locked in a grim, often-forgotten border war. For the past 11 years, the two armies have been fighting over glaciers and serrated peaks rising more than 20,000 feet (6,000 metres) above sea level. Altitude sickness, accidents and avalanches claim more victims than enemy fire. "Soldiers are traversing glaciers strewn with crevices, with the danger of avalanches. This naturally causes non-battle...

NEW DELHI, June 23 (1995): India, in a move towards greater transparency in strife-torn Kashmir, has agreed to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to detainees in the region. An ICRC statement said a memorandum of understanding was signed between the committee and the Indian government allowing it "access to all persons arrested and detained in relation with the current situation in Jammu and Kashmir." "The purpose of ICRC visits is to monitor the conditions of detention and treatment of...

NEW DELHI, June 22 (1995): New Delhi plans to hold elections in the rebellious Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir within six months, junior minister Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi told the United News of India (UNI) on Thursday. New Delhi had hoped to hold elections in the state, the first since a separatist rebellion erupted five years, next month but was forced to drop the plans after the destruction of a major Moslem shrine provoked widespread outrage. Earlier this month parliament, accepting a government recommendation,...

SRINAGAR, June 16 (1995): A militant group has announced a ban on an annual Hindu pilgrimage in Kashmir for the second consecutive year unless its demands for the reconstruction of a mosque razed by Hindu zealots are met, a newspaper report said here Friday. Hindu pilgrims would not be allowed to go to the holy Amarnath cave if the Babri mosque was not rebuilt, the Urdu-language daily Tahreek-i-Kashmir quoted Muatasum Billaha, chief of the Harkat-ul-Ansar rebel outfit, as saying. "Unless the government starts...

NEW DELHI, June 15 (1995): India, in a groundbreaking move towards transparency in strife-torn Kashmir, has agreed to open the region's prisons to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Indian officials said on Thursday. They said the Geneva-based humanitarian group would be the first international body to be allowed unescorted meetings with detainees in Indian prisons. The Indian move to allow ICRC free access to Kashmir's prisons followed sustained pressure by several key members of the European Union,...

SRINAGAR, June 15 (1995): A Kashmiri separatist leader who escaped from jail earlier this month surfaced at a news conference on Thursday and said he broke out of prison to unite his fractious militant group. Sajjad Ahmed Kenoo, vice-chairman of the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen (Moslem Brotherhood), told reporters at Srinagar, the summer capital of troubled Jammu and Kashmir state, that he would work to unite various militant groups operating in the province. Indian authorities suspended a police officer and two policemen...

SRINAGAR, June 15 (1995): Seventeen people, including 14 Moslem separatist militants, were killed overnight in the strife-torn northern Indian state of Kashmir, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said Thursday. Indian security forces shot dead 10 militants in Kupwara district while they were trying to sneak in from Pakistan, the news agency quoted defence ministry officials as saying. Two other militants trying to cross the Indian border were arrested and "large quantities" of arms and ammunition seized from them, PTI...

SRINAGAR, June 12 (1995): One person was killed and four injured overnight in a clash between Sunni and Shiite Moslems in a village in the northern Indian state of Kashmir, police said Monday. All of the victims of the fighting in the village of Chattergam in central Kashmir were members of the minority Shiite community, police said. Police said the village was tense on Monday following the clash over the commemoration of Muharam, the martyrdom of Prophet Mohammed's grandson, Imam Hussain. Shiite Moslems, who...