India-Pakistan Tensions Flare
The world's most heavily militarized border, where almost a million Pakistani and Indian troops are eyeball to eyeball, is edging closer to the brink of war.
On Tuesday, masked gunmen assassinated Abdul Ghani Lone, a leading Kashmir peace advocate, in front of 5,000 people at a cemetery marking the assassination of another independence leader 12 years ago.
Shooting and shelling continued on the India-Pakistan frontier where the Indian prime minister planned to visit troops amid fears of war.
Lone was a moderate, soft-spoken separatist leader who sought dialogue with India to bring self-determination for Kashmiris.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Lone's assassination, and the assailants got away.
Tensions in the region have been high since militants based in Pakistan attacked India's parliament in December. Now a new series of terrorist attacks by Pakistan-backed militants – including one that killed 34 people last week – has dramatically upped the ante.
Before his death, Lone had said the Indian government and local Jammu-Kashmir state authorities had tried to kill him, and that an Islamic militant group fighting to separate the Himalayan region from India had threatened his life.
As Lone's body and that of a security guard lay on the lawn of his Srinagar home, surrounded by wailing women, his son blamed neighboring Pakistan and its Inter Services Intelligence spy agency.
"Pakistan and ISI killed him," Sajjad Lone told The Associated Press Television Network. He gave no explanation.
He and his father have urged the Pakistan-based Islamic militants that have fought Indian forces in Kashmir for 12 years to give the region's war-shattered residents a chance to find a nonviolent way of expressing their desires for self-government.
"He was working for peace and for this he had to give up his life," Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee told reporters as he arrived in Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu-Kashmir state. "Lone's death means we shall have to work harder for peace to return to Kashmir."
Vajpayee came to visit victims of last week's attack on an army base last week that killed 34 people, mostly wives and children of soldiers, increasing tension among 1 million troops posted on both sides of the border since December.
India blamed Pakistan and Islamic militants based there, for the army camp attack, expelled the Pakistani ambassador, and reorganized maritime and ground forces under the military. An extra 3,000 soldiers were sent to the frontier on Tuesday.
Vajpayee planned on Wednesday to visit the border, where shelling, and mortar and small arms fire were traded for a fifth straight day by the armies of the two nuclear-armed nations. The Indian army said three Indian villagers were killed and seven were wounded Tuesday in Rajouri, a Kashmir district on the international border.
Pakistan's government said two people were killed and seven were wounded by Indian gunfire. Neither report could be independently confirmed.
Suspected Islamic guerrillas killed two activists of the state's ruling National Conference party, said Tirath Acharya, a spokesman for the paramilitary Border Security Force. Four soldiers were reported wounded and three guerrillas killed in other fighting.
Pakistan's ambassador to Britain, Abdul Kader Jaffer, said the nuclear-armed neighbors are "very close" to war.
"They are very close," he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio Tuesday. "And therefore it is necessary for all our friends to get together, bring sanity where there is total insanity."
Indian foreign ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao refused to answer directly when asked if the two countries are on the brink of war.
"Nowhere has India been belligerent, but things have reached a pass where India's sovereign interests have to be defended," she said.
The two nations' competing claims for all of Kashmir has provoked two of their three wars since independence from Britain in 1947. The region is divided between them by a 1972 cease-fire line, called the Line of Control.
The United States, Britain and the European Union have urged both countries to exercise restraint and recommended talks, which Pakistan favors. Washington said it would send Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the region later this month.
India has refused talks until militants based in Pakistan stop crossing the border and the Line of Control to stage attacks. India accuses Pakistan of arming, training and financing the guerrillas, fighting since 1989 for Kashmir's independence or merger with Pakistan.
Islamabad says it has no control over the militants and says its support is only ideological.
There was aggressive slogan-shouting Tuesday between rival groups — one supporting Kashmir independence, the other merger with Pakistan — at the memorial Lone and 5,000 other people attended at a cemetery in Srinagar, summer capital of the state.
The gathering was to commemorate the assassination 12 years ago of Kashmir's highest religious leader, or mirwaiz, Mohammed Farooq.
Lone was a top leader of Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Party Hurriyat Conference, whose religious and political parties are sometimes split along the same lines as the cemetery crowd.
As the two-hour event ended, Lone stepped off the stage, holding the hand of his friend, Peer Hafizullah Makhdoomi, who then walked a few steps ahead.
Then two bursts of automatic weapon gunfire rang out, and the crowd dispersed, screaming and terrified.
"I heard indiscriminate fire. I turned around. Mr. Lone was lying flat on the ground. He had an instantaneous death," Makhdoomi told The Associated Press.
Lone's driver said the leader and a bodyguard were killed by two masked gunmen wearing police uniforms. Another guard was critically injured. Lone was shot in the heart, abdomen and thigh, said M. Yousuf, a senior police officer.
One of the attackers rolled a grenade into the crowd, but it did not explode, the independent Aaj Tak television said.
Lone is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter. His funeral was expected to draw thousands on Wednesday evening.