SRINAGAR, June 24 (2005): A car bomb wounded at least 25 soldiers in Indian Kashmir on Friday, witnesses said. No further details were available. Separatists have been battling Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region since 1989, and thousands of people have died in the fighitng. (For complete story write to admin@freepresskashmir.com)

SRINAGAR, June 17 (2005): Thirteen people, including six Pakistani intruders and a self-styled company commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, were killed in separate militancy-related incidents in northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, where troops foiled two major infiltration bids along the Line of Control. Six militants, who had sneaked across the LoC in Tangdhar sector in Kupwara district yesterday, were killed by army troops in a two-day-long operation, thus thwarting a major infiltration bid, a defence spokesperson...

SRINAGAR, June 14 (2005): A strike in protest against a bomb explosion that killed 15 people shut down schools, shops and businesses in Indian Kashmir's main city on Tuesday. More than 100 people were wounded in Monday's powerful car bomb explosion near a school in the town of Pulwama south of Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir. Police blamed Muslim rebels for the explosion, but no militant group claimed responsibility for one of the worst attacks in recent months. Schools and colleges were also closed in...

PULWAMA, June 13 (2005): Fourteen people were killed and at least 100 injured on Monday when a powerful car bomb exploded near a school in a busy town in Indian Kashmir, security officials said. The dead included two students and three policemen, they said. Pieces of human flesh were scattered near the site of the explosion in Pulwama town south of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital. At least a dozen children were among the injured. "There was hustle and bustle in the town when suddenly all hell broke loose. There...

NEW DELHI, June 12 (2005):Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on a visit to the Siachen Glacier which has been the scene of bloody fighting with Pakistan, said on Sunday it was time to convert the world's highest battlefield into a "peace mountain". Singh is the first prime minister to visit Siachen, between 18,000 and 22,000 feet (5,400-6,600 metres) above sea level. There has been no fighting on Siachen since 2003, when a ceasefire came into effect between Indian and Pakistani troops. But thousands have died in the past...

ISLAMABAD, June 10 (2005): Two factions of a major Kashmiri separatist movement seeking independence from both India and Pakistan have agreed to reunite, one of its leaders told Reuters on Friday. The secular, nationalist Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) was at the forefront of an uprising against Indian rule in the mostly-Muslim Kashmir Valley in 1989. The JKLF split in two after Yasin Malik, its leader in the Indian portion of Kashmir, decided to reject militancy and continue the struggle through political...

MUZZAFARABAD, June 6 (2005): Yasin Malik talks wistfully of his days as a rebel fighting for Kashmir's independence from Indian rule and of heart-stopping crossings over the border from Pakistan more than 15 years ago. Last week he crossed the frontier legally with eight other separatist leaders -- to demand a role for Kashmiris in the 18-month-old peace process between India and Pakistan. The return to the place where he was first given a gun to fight Indian prompted Malik, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation...

SRINAGAR, June 5: Demanding that a time-frame be fixed to resolve the Kashmir issue, the moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference today said India and Pakistan should "develop consensus" by year-end with the involvement of people of the state in the dialogue process. "Hurriyat has always supported dialogue process. Even now we consider a serious and sincere dialogue as key to resolution of the issue and carrying forward the peace process," its leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq told reporters here. "While both India and...

ISLAMABAD, June 5 (2005): Separatist leaders from Indian Kashmir met Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Sunday and said afterwards they were assured Islamabad would do its best to bring them into the peace process with India. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the moderate faction in Kashmir's All Parties Hurriyat Conference, said Aziz supported the Kashmiri people's "just struggle for the right of self-determination". "We are assured that the government of Pakistan is doing its utmost, its best, to see to it as...

ISLAMABAD, June 4 (2005): Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf hailed the arrival of separatist leaders from Indian Kashmir in Islamabad on Saturday as a sign of the flexibility shown by his government and India in their search for peace. Musharraf, who will meet the separatist leaders on Tuesday, seized on the compromise reached to allow them to travel without Indian passports or Pakistani visas, saying it held "very great political significance". "It is a recognition by both India and Pakistan of the disputed...