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Eight killed in Kashmir as US envoy flies in

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday August 25, 2002
The Observer

Islamist rebels shot dead eight Muslim villagers, including three women, in Indian Kashmir yesterday as a US envoy took his peace mission to Islamabad to try to cool tensions between India and Pakistan over the disputed region.
The killings occurred during an election campaign for a new assembly in India's Jammu and Kashmir state scheduled for the autumn, which India hopes will boost the legitimacy of its rule.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage arrived in Islamabad from New Delhi amid rapidly escalating tensions over Kashmir after Pakistan's claim last week that it had killed dozens of Indian soldiers who had attacked an outpost near Kargil, a claim that India has denied.

'We can offer assistance, we cannot impose a solution,' Armitage told reporters after talking with President Pervez Musharraf.

Armitage said that obvious infiltration by Islamist guerrillas was continuing across the line of control into Indian-held Kashmir, but that Pakistan has assured him it was not responsible.

Armitage arrived in the area on his latest peace mission amid new exchanges between the two sides, and fears that the crisis over Kashmir is once again in danger of boiling over into war.

Armitage acknowledged little had changed in the tense stand-off between the two nuclear-armed nations since he visited the area in June.

That visit eased tensions somewhat as the two nations appeared on the brink of war. 'I can say nothing has changed from the assurances I was given in June,' said Armitage yesterday.

In the violence yesterday, eight Muslim villagers were shot dead by suspected Islamic militants. Indian police said the attackers barged into the homes of villagers in the district of Rajouri, which is close to the border with Pakistan, and fired indiscriminately.

After reports of clashes between Pakistani and Indian troops last week, Pakistan's army spokesman, General Rashid Qureshi, said dozens of Indian soldiers were killed after attacking a military post near Kargil. Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes described the Pakistani allegations as an 'outright lie'.