NEW DELHI, 27 November 2003 — Villagers on either side of the India-Pakistan border in Kashmir celebrated their most peaceful Eid in over a decade yesterday as an historic cease-fire between the two armies went into effect.
There was no firing from midnight Tuesday along any part of the 1,126-kilometer frontier, said Indian Army headquarters. That was confirmed by villagers and soldiers on both sides of the international border and the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
There was “not even celebration fire” to mark the Eid Al-Fitr holiday, which ended the fasting month of Ramadan, said Indian Army Lt. Col. Mukhtiar Singh.
Pakistani and Indian military chiefs agreed to start the cease-fire on Eid, when firing in the air is common, as on other festival days in South Asia. Villagers celebrated yesterday by visiting relatives and places of worship.
In Srinagar, thousands of residents swarmed mosques to offer prayers and many said it was the most peaceful Eid they had seen in years. “Oh Allah! Return peace with dignity to Kashmir,” the imam leading the Eid congregation in a mosque prayed.
“It is a lovely Eid gift from India and Pakistan,” said hotel owner Asan Ullah Lone, in the frontier town of Baramulla, 55 km north of Srinagar.
During past Eid holidays, “people would even be afraid of going to visit friends and relatives or to pray because firing and shelling would seldom stop,” said journalist Karamat Qayoom in Baramulla.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said he hoped the cease-fire would also see the end of insurgency in Indian Kashmir that has killed tens of thousands since 1989.
“The cease-fire has started. It’s a good thing. I also feel that cross-border terrorism will also end. India and Pakistan will have to live together, they are neighbors,” Vajpayee said at a public meeting in central Indian city of Raipur.
But in a separate reaction, Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani told NDTV 24x7 news channel that “peace can come about only if Pakistan abandons cross-border terrorism of which there is no evidence as yet.”
The agreement did not cover security forces’ battles with militants inside Kashmir.
Defense Minister George Fernandes said Pakistani military authorities had been told that any infiltrating militants would be shot, but fire would not be aimed at Pakistani soldiers. “If there is any infiltration, it will be dealt with in the same manner it has been dealt with so far,” Fernandes said in Raipur.
He was optimistic about improving relations with Pakistan, however. “There is reason to believe that this could take us to a point where we may be able to find solutions to problems that have been plaguing us for a long time,” the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted Fernandes as saying.
Analysts say the cease-fire will help improve the atmosphere ahead of an expected visit to Islamabad by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for a regional summit in early January.
Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali said there might even be a one-on-one meeting with the Indian leader on the sidelines of the summit in Islamabad.
“One cannot rule out meetings,” Jamali said. “Anyway, we are the hosts, we will definitely give him respect. And I think, God willing, there will be reciprocity.”
The two nations’ armies — which have trade machine-gun and mortar fire almost daily — said they would observe the cease-fire along their entire frontier. That includes the 198-km international border that covers western states in India and Pakistan, the 778-km LoC dividing Kashmir, and the 150-km frontier at the Siachen Glacier.
“Perhaps life will become like it once was,” said Mohammed Mushtaq, 38, a truck driver in the frontier village of Chakothi in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. “Our lives have been destroyed by this fighting,” he said, recounting how his children often missed school to spend the day cowering in a bunker he built near his house.
The largest militant group battling in India’s portion of the divided Himalayan province, however, said its men would keep fighting. “The mujahideen will continue their operations,” Salim Hashmi, a spokesman for Hezb-ul-Mujahideen, said.
“The cease-fire may bring relief for the residents of some areas, but this relief will be temporary as long as the basic issue is not resolved in accordance with Kashmiris’ aspirations,” he said.
Yesterday, police said they had shot dead three Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militants at Palnar in the northern Kupwara district, including the group’s “divisional commander” Manzoor Ahmed, and another militant in a separate incident in the same district.
And an Indian paramilitary trooper was killed in a gunbattle with militants yesterday in the Kalali area, about 175 km north of Jammu, police said.
(Additional input from agencies)
