SRINAGAR, May 31 (2001): Eighteen people were killed, including 14 militants and three soldiers, in separate incidents in the last 24 hours ahead of the end of ceasefire in India's Kashmir, police said Thursday. India ended the six-month-long cessation of Indian military combat operations in Kashmir last week. The ceasfire, announced by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in November, had been extended three times till May 31. On Thursday, Indian troops detected a group of 11 militants trying to sneak into India from...

SRINAGAR, May 31 (2001): Three Muslim militants who had barricaded themselves inside a mosque for over 12 hours following a shootout with Indian security personnel in Kashmir were allowed to escape Thursday, police said. The three militants had sought cover in the mosque after a gunbattle which left one soldier and one policeman dead on Wednesday. Security personnel had surrounded the mosque in Shopian district, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of the Kashmiri summer capital Srinagar, a police official...

SRINAGAR, May 31 (2001): Eighteen people were killed, including 14 militants and three soldiers, in separate incidents in the last 24 hours ahead of the end of ceasefire in India's Kashmir, police said Thursday. India ended the six-month-long cessation of Indian military combat operations in Kashmir last week. The ceasfire, announced by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in November, had been extended three times till May 31. On Thursday, Indian troops detected a group of 11 militants trying to sneak into India from...

SRINAGAR, May 30 (2001):Kashmir's main separatist alliance rejected on Wednesday a call by the Indian prime minister to hold peace talks with a government envoy before seeking a meeting with Pakistan's military ruler. Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) should hold talks with Krishan Chander Pant, the Indian peace negotiator currently in Kashmir, before seeking a meeting with General Pervez Musharraf. Pant, who is spearheading New Delhi's peace...

SRINAGAR, May 29 (2001): Indian junior commerce minister Omar Abdullah, the son of Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, escaped an apparent assassination attempt by Muslim militants on Tuesday. Abdullah was driving back after opening a computer centre in a college in the Kashmiri summer capital Srinagar when suspected militants fired three rifle grenades at his motorcade, police officials said. All the grenades missed their targets. Three civilian passers-by were wounded. The dominant Kashmiri Hizbul Mujahideen...

SRINAGAR, May 29 (2001): The Indian government's chief negotiator on Kashmir, K.C. Pant, held talks here Tuesday with separatist leader Shabir Shah. Shah was the only Kashmiri separatist leader to agree to meet Pant during his six-day visit to the troubled region which began on Monday. While agreeing to the talks, Shah stressed that the meeting would be "informal" and would not mark the opening of a political dialogue with New Delhi. Shah's office has already been attacked twice amid militant threats against any...

SRINAGAR, May 28 (2001): A senior Indian official spearheading a peace dialogue with Kashmiri groups said on Monday the aim of his talks would be to understand the "hopes and aspirations" of the people of the troubled Himalayan region. Krishan Chander Pant, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, who was asked by New Delhi to lead peace talks with a broad range of groups in Kashmir, arrived in Srinagar earlier on Monday on a six-day tour of the restive state. "The main thrust of my talks would be to try to...

SRINAGAR, May 25 (2001): Twelve people were killed in a spate of explosions and shootouts in Kashmir on Friday despite a flurry of diplomacy between India and Pakistan to resolve their dispute over the Himalayan region. Police said five Indian security force personnel were killed and two were wounded when suspected rebels exploded a landmine at Udhampur district, 70 km (44 miles) northeast of Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir state. One soldier was killed and another was wounded in another landmine...

NEW DELHI, May 25 (2001):Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Friday invited Pakistani military leader General Pervez Musharraf to visit India, asking him to "walk the high road with us". The talks between the two leaders, which Vajpayee said would address all outstanding issues between the neighbours - including the vexed Kashmir dispute - would be the first India-Pakistan summit in two years. New Delhi had refused to engage Pakistan in dialogue until it stopped "cross-border terrorism", its byword for Islamabad's...

SRINAGAR, May 24 (2001):India's decision to end a six-month-old ceasefire in disputed Kashmir makes no difference to people in the strife-torn Himalayan region, residents said on Wednesday. But most say they hope India's surprise invitation to Pakistan's military ruler to enter peace talks may help settle the Kashmir dispute and end the revolt, now more than 11 years old. "The ceasefire never existed and its end makes no difference," Mohammad Maqbool, a 60-year-old priest, told Reuters. "But the invitation to General...