SRINAGAR, June 30 (1996): A fire broke out on Sunday near Kashmir's biggest mosque, the 600-year-old Jama Masjid, triggering protest demonstrations, police said. They said a deranged person apparently lit a fire near the mosque to warm himself. The flames damaged the eastern gate to the structure, which is in the summer capital of India's Jammu and Kashmir state, Srinagar. Later, local residents took to the streets to protest against the fire in the mosque, which is a political and religous centre for Kashmiri...

MUZAFFARABAD, June 28 (1996): Pakistani police on Friday accused Indian troops of firing across the Neelum Valley ceasefire line into Pakistani-held Kashmir, killing two girls and badly wounding one. Defence sources said Indian troops used mortar shells and machineguns against the village of Nakdar, about 100 km (65 miles) northeast of Muzaffarabad, on Thursday evening. The attack killed two sisters aged 10 and 11, and wounded a 12-year-old girl, who was fighting for her life in hospital. Normal access to the...

JAMMU, June 27 (1996): Thousands of Indians and Pakistanis put aside decades of mutual hostility on Thursday and jointly honoured a 200-year-old shrine said to work miracles. An estimated 100,000 Pakistanis and 40,000 Indians converged from either side of the frontier in the disputed territory of Kashmir on the shrine to the mystic Baba Dileep Singh Manhas. The shrine at Chamliyal village is 60 km (40 miles) from Jammu, winter capital of the Himalayan Jammu and Kashmir state, over which India and Pakistan have fought...

NEW DELHI, June 27 (1996):New Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda met with Moslem separatist leaders from Kashmir for talks aimed at restoring peace in the strife-torn Himalayan province, officials and newspapers said Thursaday. The closed-door talks on Wednesday between Gowda, who heads his 27-day-old United Front coalition government, and a forum of Moslem rebels was the first such meeting between an Indian premier and Kashmiri separatists since 1989. Officials said the two sides met for the talks in the residence of...

SRINAGAR, June 26 (1996): The wife of one of four foreign hostages in Kashmir made a tearful plea on Wednesday for news about her husband, saying she longed to hold him in her arms again. Jane Schelley, wife of American Donald Hutchings, broke into tears several times during an emotional news conference in Srinagar, summer capital of mostly Hindu India's only Moslem majority state, Jammu and Kashmir. "I want to know where my husband is," Schelley told hushed listeners. "There is no wife or mother who cannot understand...

SRINAGAR, June 26 (1996): The wife of an American held hostage in Kashmir on Wednesday urged Indian and Pakistani leaders to work for the release of four Westerners seized by Moslem militants almost one year ago. Jane Hutchings said in an emotional appeal here that the four tourists -- her husband Donald, Britons Paul Wells and Keith Mangan, and German Dirk Hasert -- should be set free immediately. "They should be released," she said, reading out a statement at a crowded news conference. "They came to the beautiful...

NEW DELHI, June 24 (1996): The wife of one of four Western tourists held hostage in Kashmir, returning to India after a year's wait, renewed an appeal to their guerrilla captors on Monday to "let our men go". "It has been a long year for us, and I think that this is time, we are now at the one year mark, they should let our men go," Jane Schelley, wife of American hostage Donald Hutchings, told reporters in the India capital. Hutchings, along with Britons Keith Mangan and Paul Wells, was kidnapped by shadowy Al-Faran...

SRINAGAR, June 24 (1996): New Delhi is considering a proposal to introduce a resolution in next month's parliament session to grant autonomy to the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir, Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav said on Monday. "The government at New Delhi is thinking of introducing a resolution in the forthcoming parliamentary session for the grant of autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir," Yadav told a news conference at Srinagar, the state's summer capital. Yadav is the first minister of the 23-day-old...

SRINAGAR, June 18 (1996): Newspapers in the troubled Kashmir Valley resumed publication on Tuesday after a two-month strike in protest against alleged infringement of their freedom by Indian authorities and separatist guerrillas. "We have resumed publication in the interest of our readers," Noor-ul-Qamrain, editor of English-language daily The Mirror of Kashmir, said. "Let us face whatever is ahead of us." More than a dozen newspapers suspended publication on April 19, just before Indian general...

SRINAGAR,  June 30 (1996) - A letter allegedly written by a minister, urging the return of Hindu refugees to the troubled state of Kashmir, provoked a stern warning from Moslem rebels here Thursday. The powerful Hizbul Mujahedeen group warned the Indian authorities in a statement that it would fight "tooth and nail", any attempt to bring "Indian agents" to the Kashmir Valley in the guise of refugees. Many Hindus fled Kashmir following attacks on them by Moslem militants who have been fighting against Indian rule in...