SRINAGAR, 5 September 2003 — Sixteen people were killed in continuing separatist-related violence in Indian-administered Kashmir, where European Union ambassadors yesterday said the EU had no intention to mediate between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.
The EU ambassadors on a visit to Kashmir said the Union had no intention to mediate over the vexed issue of Kashmir.
“European Union has no intention to mediate between Islamabad and New Delhi. It (Kashmir) should be resolved by them (India and Pakistan),” said Benedetto Amari, Italy’s ambassador to India.
“The Union considers Kashmir as a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan,” said Amari, who headed the troika consisting of two more ambassadors from Ireland and European Commission.
Amari said there has been a “slight improvement” in the security situation in the region since last year’s state elections.
A 14-year-old anti-Indian rebellion in the Himalayan region has claimed more than 38,000 lives, according to officials. Separatists put the toll between 80,000 to 100,000.
Meanwhile, two militants who early yesterday shot dead a woman and wounded her three children and a relative in southern Kashmir were later gunned down by troops when they tried to storm a military camp, police said.
Suspected rebels entered a house in Poonch, 210 km west of Indian Kashmir’s winter capital Jammu, and fired at the occupants, killing a mother and injuring her three children and another resident.
The militants then tried to enter nearby Kamsar Mohalla army camp but were halted by guards at the gate. The two rebels were shot dead when they exploded grenades and began shooting, a police spokesman said.
He said the militants, in their 20s, were suspected to be Pakistani nationals. Two AK rifles, 12 magazines, 14 grenades and 250 rounds were recovered from them.
The fresh bloodletting brings to at least 61 the number of people killed in a wave of attacks by militants in restive Kashmir since Saturday when Indian troops gunned down a notorious rebel commander Gazi Baba.
Since then the state has erupted into a blistering of “revenge attacks” by the militants.
Also in southern Indian Kashmir, an ongoing cat-and-mouse clash between security forces and a group of seven rebels in thick forests of the Kathua border district, 85 km east of Jammu, continued into the third day yesterday, police said.
A security force official has been killed and eight others wounded since the encounter began on Tuesday, a spokesman said.
Firefights that have been erupting sporadically since the rebels were first sighted wearing military fatigues in the village of Gatti on Tuesday occurred again yesterday, the spokesman said.
Elsewhere, six soldiers were injured when a militant opened fire at their patrol in the forests of Kokerwan in northern Baramulla district overnight, police said, the soldiers retaliated by killing the rebel.
In the neighboring forests Indian troops shot dead two more rebels.
Two more militants were shot dead during another encounter with security forces in the southern Doda district while two soldiers were injured during the fighting, police said yesterday.
In the same district suspected rebels shot dead a Muslim and injured two of his relatives overnight, police said.
Indian troops shot dead six militants in separate encounters in Srinagar, Anantnag and Rajouri districts overnight, police said, as suspected rebels killed another Muslim in the district of Poonch.
