SRINAGAR, July 31 (1996):Paramilitary troops killed seven people on Wednesday while storming a separatist guerrilla training camp in the troubled northern valley of Kashmir, an Indian defence spokesman said. The troops laid siege to a Hizb-ul-Mujahideen training camp in the dense Pir-Panjal forests of Pulwama district, 31 kms (19 miles) south of the state capital Srinagar, said spokesman P. Purushottam. He said seven guerillas were killed in a three-hour battle at the camp, but others escaped. "We are not sure how...

ISLAMABAD, July 25 (1996): Pakistan on Thursday condemned what it called stepped-up Indian "repression" in the disputed Kashmir region and said the international community must urge New Delhi stop this. A Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters New Delhi had stepped up "a campaign of repression and intimidation" against Kashmiris after their leadership rejected Indian plans to hold controversial state assembly elections there in September. He said three Kashmiri militant leaders opposing Indian rule were killed by...

SRINAGAR, July 20 (1996): Commandos have gunned down the chief of a powerful Moslem militant group overnight, saying Saturday his death would deal a severe blow to the separatist campaign in India's troubled Kashmir. "The most dreaded terrorist has been eliminated in Kashmir," state police chief Mohinder Sabherwal said after the slaying of the Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen separatist group supremo Ghulam Rasool Mir in a gunbattle on Friday night. Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen is one of the two dozen mainstream rebel groups spearheading...

NEW DELHI, July 19 (1996): A nine-year-old boy was killed and three injured Friday when a powerful mine exploded in Srinagar, the summer capital of the troubled Indian state of Kashmir, the United News of India (UNI) said. Witnesses said the explosion at 10:20 a.m. (0450 GMT) in Srinagar's Gaw Kadal area shattered windows of homes and offices, including those of the UNI bureau. Nine-year-old Omar Rashid, who was playing in the area, died instantly.  

SRINAGAR, July 18 (1996): Kashmiri Moslem separatist leaders on Thursday announced a boycott of proposed state assembly elections in the strife-torn Himalayan territory, saying the exercise would be farcical. The All Party Freedom Conference, an umbrella organisation of some 30 Moslem militant and political groups, rejected Kashmir Governor K.V. Krishna Rao's appeal to participate in the elections, tentatively scheduled for September. "Elections will never solve the Kashmir problem," Conference leader Abdul Gani Lone...

SRINAGAR, July 17 (1996):Paramilitary troops on Wednesday shot dead a Kashmiri guerrilla leader allegedly involved in series of recent bomb blasts in and around the Indian capital of New Delhi, police said. A senior Kashmir Police official told a news conference in Srinagar that Hilal Ahmad Beigh, chairman of Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen guerrilla group, was involved in the five bombings since last November which killed at least 70 people. "Hilal Ahmad Beigh, the chairman of Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, personally executed a series of...

SRINAGAR, July 17 (1996): Two army soldiers were among 11 people killed overnight in Moslem separatist-linked violence in the troubled Indian state of Kashmir, police said Wednesday. Indian tourists were making plans to leave the insurgency-hit Kashmir Valley, meanwhile, following the slaying of six Indian tourists on Monday by suspected Moslem separatists, police said. Police said a colonel and his subordinate were shot dead and three soldiers injured by Moslem militants in the northern Kashmir village of Mussan Khoi...

SRINAGAR, July 16 (1996): Six Indian tourists were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir while six others who had been held hostage overnight were released, police said on Tuesday. Police said the victims' bodies, riddled with bullets, were discovered near Dal Lake on Tuesday morning. No Kashmiri militant group immediately claimed responsibility. A so-called Militant Coordination Group made up of all the main militant factions issued a press statement last week asking for a ban...

SRINAGAR, July 12 (1996): Two of Kashmir's most influential political leaders have expressed deep mistrust of India's plans to hold assembly elections in the troubled state after more than six years of separatist violence. Former Jammu and Kashmir state chief minister Farooq Abdullah said on Thursday that the elections, proposed for September or October, would be futile if New Delhi did not follow up the polls by granting sweeping autonomy to the region. He said parliamentary polls in Kashmir in May, boycotted by his...