Indian PM on rare Kashmir trip after deadly attack

SRINAGAR: Prime Minister Man-mohan Singh faced protests as he arrived for a rare visit to Indian Kashmir yesterday, a day after militants killed eight soldiers in the deadliest attack in the region for five years.
Singh said India was united in the fight against terrorism after landing in the southern town of Kishtwar as part of the two-day trip, his first to the region for three years.
“India is firmly united against terrorism. (We) Won’t let them succeed in their nefarious designs,” the premier told Indian media in Kishtwar, where he laid a foundation stone for a hydro-power plant.
Singh stressed in a speech that violence “had shown a sharp decline and was the lowest in last two decades,” the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Singh was accompanied by Sonia Gandhi, the president of the ruling Congress Party, for the visit in which he will inspect major infrastructure projects and inaugurate part of a railway line to connect north and south Kashmir.
It is the first time the premier has visited the Indian-controlled part of the divided Himalayan territory since June 2010 and comes less than a year before India goes to the polls.
Police and paramilitary forces have been deployed in strength across the region for the visit, including in the main city of Srinagar where the premier is expected later in the day.
Shops and other businesses, along with schools, banks and offices were closed throughout the city after the three main separatist groups called a strike to protest Singh’s visit.
Government forces were enforcing curfew-like restrictions in the volatile and congested old town in Srinagar.
“We are confined to our homes whenever a politician from Delhi visits our Kashmir,” a resident of the area said by phone, adding that he was not able to leave his neighborhood for work.
Despite the high security, a group of militants staged an attack on Monday on a troop convoy on the outskirts of Srinagar, killing eight soldiers and wounding 13 others.
Hizbul Mujahideen, a local pro-Pakistan militant, group claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest on Indian security forces since July 2008 when a land mine killed nine soldiers on a bus on the outskirts of Srinagar.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was among those who condemned Monday’s attack, saying it was “aimed at restoring the shattered morale of the militants.”
Abdullah is an ally of Singh but has criticized the Delhi government for showing what he regards as a lack of political will to resolve the underlying tensions in what is India’s only Muslim-majority state.
“The Kashmir issue needs to be addressed politically. Economic packages are not a solution to the issue nor can it be found on the point of a gun,” Abdullah said recently.