NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR, 22 November — India’s Home Minister L.K. Advani said yesterday that the government was willing to talk to any Kashmiri activist group as long as it gave up violence for a negotiated settlement over the territory.
“The government’s approach has been its willingness to discuss with any organization which is prepared to lay down arms irrespective of its past” Advani told parliament in response to a statement by Kashmir’s biggest activist group expressing willingness to negotiate.
Replying to questions by deputies, Advani said he would certainly examine the statement on talks by Hizbul Mujahedeen made on Tuesday.
A Hizb official said on Tuesday in Kashmir capital Srinagar that the organization had not closed its doors to negotiations. Asad Yazdani said the Hizb would consider a cease-fire in the territory provided the government agreed to tripartite talks with Pakistan and the activists.
Meanwhile, troops have shot dead 14 activists in Kashmir, a defense spokesman said yesterday. The Border Security Force (BSF) shot 12 activists in the Ramgarh area, 50 km south of Jammu, as they were trying to cross the border from Pakistan to India, the spokesman said.
Police in Kashmir said yesterday that security forces had smashed a Pakistan-based activists’ group network by killing six top activists and arresting more than a dozen others. “Security forces in a major breakthrough have smashed the Al-Badr network in Kashmir,” state police Director General A.K. Suri told a news conference. “Six top militants, including its self-styled chief, Hafiz Hasan Ali alias Nayeem of Peshawar, and Syed Tulah Ahmad of Karachi, have been killed and 13 arrested.”
He described the death of the two as a “set-back” to the 12-year-old insurgency in Kashmir. The security forces also said they had recovered 63 kg of explosives in three different locations in Kashmir since Tuesday. Security forces also found rockets, hand grenades, bombs and rifles in overnight raids.
Indian and Pakistani forces were also exchanging fire along the international border, the defense spokesman said. A woman died and at least 12 other civilians were injured in overnight Indian shelling on the Pakistani side of the Kashmir border, reports said in Muzaffarabad yesterday.
A 45-year-old woman was killed in a remote village northeast of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered-Kashmir, reports said, adding that eight other people were injured in the same area.
Authorities in Kashmir beefed up security fearing an infiltration by Taleban fighters fleeing Afghanistan. A security official said members of the Taleban could enter Kashmir through Pakistani territory.
