SRINAGAR, 11 July 2005 — Investigators have found no link yet between Kashmiri rebels and gunmen who attacked a disputed religious site last week, Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil said yesterday.
“We would not like to blame anybody or we would not like to spare anybody if they are involved. We have yet to come to any conclusion,” he said in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir’s summer capital, at the end of a day-long trip to the region. “We do have some information but prematurely we would not like to disclose that,” Patil added.
Five heavily armed militants were killed last week after they blasted their way into a religious complex in Ayodhya and tried to attack a makeshift temple to the Hindu deity Ram built by Hindu fanatics in 1992 after they demolished the 16th century Babri Mosque.
A sixth person, whose identity is still unknown, also died in the attack.
Indian media reports have pointed finger of blame at Kashmir’s hard-line Lashkar-e-Taiba group but no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Kashmir’s dominant rebel outfit Hizbul Mujahedeen has denied any role and blamed “Hindu extremists” for the attack.
Kashmir police said they have received photographs of the Ayodhya attackers with a request by investigators to try to find out if they were Kashmiri rebels.
In the past, New Delhi has blamed militant groups it alleges are backed by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) for armed strikes not only in Kashmir but also in other parts of the country.
Patil arrived in Kashmir yesterday to review security arrangements for the ongoing annual Hindu pilgrimage to the cave shrine of Amarnath. The procession has been attacked in the past.
Kashmir is in the grip of a nearly 16-year-old insurgency that has left more than 44,000 people dead by official count. Separatists say the toll is twice as high.
In the latest violence in the region, police said Indian troops shot dead yesterday a rebel commander of the hard-line Jaish-e-Mohammed group, while suspected rebels also shot dead a civilian they suspected of working for the Indian security forces.
Lax Security at Disputed Shrine
Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government yesterday ordered an investigation into how journalists were able to skirt police checkpoints in Ayodhya in a reconstruction of the attack meant to demonstrate the lack of security. The news reports strengthened the opposition charge that poor security enabled the terrorists to carry out the attack on Tuesday.
In a front-page report published yesterday, the Indian Express wrote how its journalists drove a car with tinted glasses past five police checkpoints on Saturday into the sprawling Ram Janmabhoomi temple complex.
The newspaper said the car was neither stopped nor checked at any point along the route, and that journalists were able to drive up to the security fence, which the militants had breached by detonating a jeep full of explosives.
“We have ordered an inquiry and I have asked the director-general of police to give me a report,” said Alok Sinha, the state’s principal home secretary.
On Saturday night, local television channels showed another similar incursion by journalists who showed the area in darkness, with paramilitary soldiers dozing using rifles as pillows.
The opposition slammed the security breaches. “After the attack, security should have been tightened. This shows a total lack of security and the indifference of the Uttar Pradesh government,” said Kesri Nath Tripathi, president of the country’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.
