Rebels Kill Kashmir Minister And 15 Others

September 12, 2002
By Terry Friel

SOGAM, India (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim separatists, intent on derailing this month's elections in Indian Kashmir, killed a state minister and 15 others in two attacks on Wednesday, police said.

A gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon at Law Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Lone, hitting him in the chest and stomach as he spoke to a rally at a school in Tikkipora village.

The gunman, who fled, then sprayed workers of the ruling National Conference party and security men with bullets. A police statement released late on Wednesday said three policemen had been killed and nine other people wounded.

"The killer made it certain that all the bullets must hit Lone sahib," his elder brother, Gulam Mohiydin Lone, told Reuters at the family's pink brick compound in his home village of Sogam.

The fresh violence came on the anniversary of the September 11 suicide hijack attacks in the United States that Washington has blamed on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Some Afghan militants fighting alongside Kashmiri separatists are believed to have trained with al Qaeda.

The guerrillas have vowed to kill participants in the elections in Kashmir, a Himalayan region at the heart of a military standoff between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.

A spokesman for Pakistan-based guerrilla group Lashkar-e-Taiba called a local news agency, Kashmir Press Service, and claimed responsibility for Lone's death.

The agency told Reuters the spokesman said a 14-year-old Kashmiri boy belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba "anti-election squad" had gunned down the minister. Earlier, an unknown group, Al-Arifeen, called the agency and claimed responsibility, the news service said.


OTHER ATTACKS

Rebels also hurled a grenade at the house of the state's tourism minister, Sakina Itoo, in a village in southern Kashmir, wounding four people. Itoo was not at home at the time, police said.

In a separate attack in the Poonch district which borders Pakistan, guerrillas opened fire during a rally of the People's Democratic Party, killing 12 people including a 12-year-old boy, and wounding 14 others, police said.

Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani condemned the violence. "They are attacks intended to subvert the will of the people who would exercise their right of franchise to elect a new assembly and a new government," he told reporters in New Delhi.

Omar Abdullah, president of the National Conference, and junior foreign minister in the federal coalition government led by the Hindu national Bharatiya Janata Party, said Lone's killing was an act of cowardice. He blamed Pakistan.

"Militants and their patrons in Pakistan were unnerved by the enthusiasm of the people to participate in the elections and so they are resorting to such dastardly acts," he said.

India has said that peaceful elections would be a key test of Pakistan's pledge to stop the flow of Islamic militants from its territory into Indian Kashmir. Pakistan says the incursions have largely stopped but has dismissed the elections as a farce.

The two nations remain locked in a military face-off all along the border after a December attack on the Indian parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based guerrillas.

Al-Arifeen claimed responsibility for the attack, a local news agency, the Kashmir Press Service, said.


SECOND CANDIDATE TO BE KILLED

Lone, 45, was the second candidate to be killed since the election was announced in early August. Last week, suspected rebels shot dead an independent candidate. A third candidate, running for the National Conference, escaped unhurt on Wednesday when suspected rebels shot at his motorcade.

Lone's bullet-riddled body, draped in a white cloth, with only his bearded face visible, was lying on a table under a canopy outside in the family compound as several hundred people paid their respects. He was to be buried on Thursday.

The compound was filled with the quiet murmur of prayers and soft wailing of women.

As dusk fell, more people made their way through the silent, narrow streets of the rice-growing village to the Lone home and flak-jacketed squads of paramilitary armed with rifles patrolled.

"If this kind of incident happens to a minister, then what will happen to other people?" Gulam Lone asked. "It is a terrible shock to me, to the family and to this whole village."

Violence has spiralled in India's only Muslim-majority state since New Delhi announced the election on August 2. More than 300 people have been killed since then.

India wants a big turnout and a peaceful poll to bolster the legitimacy of its rule in the state. But the main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, has urged a boycott, saying the election cannot be a substitute for 1948-49 U.N. resolutions calling for a vote to decide the territory's future.

Officials say more than 35,000 people have died in separatist violence since 1989. Rebels put the death toll closer to 80,000.

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