SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI, 31 July — Three activists who took refuge in a mosque in Kashmir were killed yesterday in an exchange of fire with the security forces laying siege to it, a paramilitary spokesman said.
It was the fourth time in three months that activists have taken refuge in a mosque in the insurgency-plagued state of Jammu and Kashmir. Two of the sieges ended in bloodshed. The Border Security Force (BSF) and army soldiers had laid siege yesterday to the mosque in Goigam, 55 km north of Srinagar.
“Three militants, including the battalion commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, were killed. All three bodies were recovered and the firefight has stopped,” R.P. Singh, a paramilitary official said. But it was not immediately clear if the siege of the mosque had ended and all activists inside had been killed. “The search operation in Goigam is still in progress,” Singh said.
An army officer was also wounded in the exchange of fire, police said. Singh said some village elders had been sent inside the mosque to ask the militants to surrender, but they had refused. He said the activists belonged to the Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen whose cadres account for about half the separatists active in the Kashmir Valley. Meanwhile, panic gripped Karnah, a remote frontier area situated 150 km north of Srinagar, which came under a barrage of Pakistani artillery fire on Sunday evening. There were no civilian or army casualities.
Following the failure of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s cards on the Kashmir front (from unilateral cease-fire to Agra summit), it is the turn of Home Minister L.K. Advani to try his command. Not willing to yield an inch of the Kashmir territory to Pakistan, he has displayed some willingness to yield “special powers” to Kashmir. Last week, Advani announced in the Rajya Sabha (upper house), “If the Jammu and Kashmir needs special powers, we are willing to give them.” The state government led by Farooq Abdullah has been insisting on restoration of pre-1953 status to the state. Last year, when the state government passed a bill to this effect, it was rejected by the center.
The question is to what extent would Advani be willing to yield to the state government’s demand? Earlier this week, Abdullah raised questions about what “powers” was the center willing to grant to Kashmir. In response, the center has asked him to propose a package of “special powers” for the state, instead of demanding the pre-1953 status. This has placed Farooq in a difficult position.
