JAMMU, April 30 (1996): Three Sikh separatists were shot dead by Indian troops overnight in a gunbattle along the Indo-Pakistani frontier in Kashmir, officials said Tuesday. R.S. Mehta, a Border Security Force (BSF) spokesman in this Kashmir winter capital said the Sikh militants was trying to cross the border into Indian-administered Kashmir when Indian border guards opened fire. Three guerrillas were killed in the firefight while an unspecified number of others escaped, he said, adding that a massive manhunt had...

SRINAGAR, April 29 (1996): Moslem secessionist leaders urged Kashmiris in an Eid message on Monday to boycott elections and government employees to stay away from poll duties in the strife-torn Himalayan state. A resolution approved by a 50,000-strong congregation of Moslems at the main mosque in downtown Srinagar declared that elections are no solution to the ongoing fight for an end to Indian rule over Moslem-majority Kashmir. The resolution drafted by the All-Party Freedom Conference, an amalgam of some 30...

SRINAGAR, April 28 (1996): A little known Moslem militant group in Kashmir on Sunday claimed responsibility for a bomb blast in a bus which killed 13 people in an Indian town. The Jammu and Kashmir Islami Harkat-ul-Momneen said in a statement that it carried out the massive explosion Saturday along with the Khalistan Liberation Force, a Sikh militant group. The Urdu-language statement, delivered to AFP here, said the bus was targetted because it carried activists of India's ruling Congress (I) party and the main...

SRINAGAR,March 27 (1996): Armed separatists have left Kashmir's holiest shrine in a peaceful end to a two-day standoff, sparing Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao embarrassment before general elections starting next month. Seventeen members of a faction of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) walked out of Hazratbal shrine late on Tuesday after reaching an agreement with authorities, said a senior government official who asked not to be identified. (For complete story write to admin@freepresskashmir.com)

ISLAMABAD, April 24 (1996): - A militant group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir named its new political chief for the Indian-ruled part of the disputed Himalayan region, replacing one killed last month. The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) led by Pakistan-based Amanullah Khan said N.A.G. Khawaja had been nominated JKLF president for Indian-ruled Kashmir. His predecessor, Shabbir Ahmad Siddiqui, and several comrades were killed by Indian security forces on March 24 in the Indian-ruled Kashmir's summer capital...

NEW DELHI, April 21 (1996): Two separatist groups seeking to halt elections in Indian-ruled Kashmir took responsibility today for an explosion in central Delhi on Saturday night that killed at least 17 people, including 8 foreigners. At least 30 other people were injured in the blast. The explosion, in the popular Paharganj tourist district, made rubble of a three-story building that included one of the many cheap hotels in the district. The police said the dead included three Nigerian men, two French citizens and a...

NEW DELHI, April 22 (1996): Indian border guards Monday seized heroin worth 580 million rupees (16.57 million dollars) in the troubled state of Kashmir after intercepting a group of smugglers from Pakistan, the Press Trust of India said. The news agency quoted a Border Security Force (BSF) spokesman as saying that Pakistan security agencies were pushing drugs into the Indian-controlled part of the disputed Himalayan area. He said the 58-kilogramme (127.6 pound) consignment, packed into bags of one kilogramme (2.2...

SRINAGAR, pril 21 (1996): Two little known separatist groups claimed responsibility on Sunday for planting a powerful bomb that killed at least 12 people, five of them foreigners, and injured 37 in the Indian capital. In a joint statement delivered to newspaper offices in Srinagar, the Jammu and Kashmir Islami Harkatul-Momineen and the Khalistan Liberation Force said they had exploded the bomb which destroyed a lodging house in Paharganj in the heart of New Delhi on Saturday night. The two organisations -- one a...

SRINAGAR, April 20 (1996): At least 12 separatist guerrillas and an Indian army officer were killed on Saturday in a gunbattle in troubled Kashmir, a defence spokesman said. The firing broke out when troops cordoned off a three-storey house in Khumarial village near India's border with Pakistan, and asked the militants inside to surrender. The militants opened fire, defence spokesman P.P.S. Bindra said. "Eight bodies of the militants, most of them foreigners, have been recovered while four more are under the...

SRINAGAR, April 20 (1996): Moslem separatists shot dead the brother of a Moslem candidate in upcoming general elections in Kashmir after failing to find the candidate at home, police said Saturday. An unspecified number of gunmen stormed into the house of Wali Mohammed Wani, a nominee of the Awami Tehriq party, late Friday at Baramulla town, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of here. "They asked for him, and not finding him there opened indiscriminate fire killing his brother," a police spokesman said in this...