NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD, 22 May — Leading Kashmiri activists leader Abdul Ghani Lone was gunned down in Indian-administered Kashmir yesterday, just as Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee landed in the disputed state at the start of a three-day visit. Lone, an executive member of the main separatist alliance in Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyat (freedom) Conference, was killed in Srinagar, the state summer capital, while attending a public function.
One of his personal security officers was also shot dead in the attack by the unidentified gunmen, and another was injured. Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah immediately blamed the killing on Pakistan. “We have heard that terrorists have shot Abdul Ghani Lone dead and the body has been taken home. Whoever wants a peaceful solution in Kashmir is killed by Pakistan,” he said.
However, in Islamabad, the Pakistan government issued an angry condemnation of the “cold-blooded murder” of Lone, and pointed the finger of blame at India. “The murder of Abdul Ghani Lone is yet another incident in the continuing reign of terror unleashed by the occupying forces in the Indian-held Kashmir for the last 12 years,” it said in a statement.
“The occupying forces have been engaged in a brutal effort to crush the Kashmiri spirit through murder, violence and rape. They will never succeed in achieving their despicable design.” Vajpayee, who was told of the murder when he landed in Jammu, Kashmir’s winter capital, said Lone’s death would affect the peace process in Kashmir but not stop it. “I condemn this incident. I offer my condolences to the family. It has affected the peace process but has not weakened it,” he said. “We will still work toward peace.”
Lone’s driver, Abdul Rashid, said the separatist was shot at close range by at least two attackers. “When the function was over he (Lone) was leaving the venue and going to the car, when a gunman opened fire,” he said. The assailants also threw a grenade which failed to explode, witnesses said. As news of the death spread, crowds of mourners gathered at Lone’s residence.
Lone, 70, was seen as a moderate separatist leader who wanted to initiate steps to hold dialogue with the Indian government to find a political solution to the Kashmir dispute. He had been attending a function to mark the anniversary of the death of another separatist leader, Maulvi Muhammad Farooq, who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in 1990.
Kashmir has reverberated with the sound of heavy shelling for the past five days, with Pakistani and Indian troops exchanging heavy fire across the disputed territory, the body count going up daily. Police said a soldier and three civilians, two of them children, were killed in the shelling yesterday, while six people were injured in two bomb blasts.
Defense Minister George Fernandes, who is accompanying Vajpayee on his Kashmir visit, earlier yesterday told commanders in the western desert state of Rajasthan that a “strong reply” had to be given to Pakistan-backed terrorism, while the Indian Navy, already on high alert, said it had stepped up security measures.
Pakistan warned yesterday that any cross-border action by India would provoke retaliation, and analysts predicted that such a move could trigger a wider conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors. Top military spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi told reporters in Islamabad: “Any incursions into Pakistani territory or Azad (Pakistani-controlled) Kashmir will be responded to and met with full force.”
President Pervez Musharraf has called a meeting with political leaders today when a joint session of the Cabinet and the National Security Council will also review the military standoff. “We are very close to war. It can happen anytime. It is madness at its peak,” writer and political analyst Imtiaz Alam said.
The United States on Monday urged India and Pakistan to keep diplomatic channels open, and confirmed Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage would soon visit South Asia. Secretary of State Colin Powell — who mounted an initiative to cool tensions after a December attack on New Delhi’s Parliament blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants — intervened again as political temperatures rose over the weekend.
Powell spoke to Musharraf in the latest of a series of calls, which have also included conversations with India’s Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.
