SRINAGAR, 15 June 2005 — A dawn-to-dusk strike called to protest Monday’s deadly bombing shut down India’s portion of Kashmir. Almost all shops, schools and private offices were closed yesterday to protest the suicide attack that killed 15 people and wounded 60 others the day before.
Major business districts were deserted. Government offices remained open but had much lower attendance than usual because public transport was off the roads.
Police and troops went on high alert yesterday in Kashmir to forestall further violence.
“We’re on high alert to prevent such incidents,” a police officer said.
“We don’t want to take chances. We want to save lives,” he said. Troops in combat gear were out in force in the streets of Srinagar and other areas, frisking pedestrians and searching vehicles.
The bombing Monday struck a neighborhood near a security forces camp in Pulwama, a town south of Srinagar. Police blamed it on militants fighting for Kashmir’s independence or merger with Pakistan. Three Indian security personnel died in the attack.
The separatist leader who called the strike said he suspected Indian government agencies of plotting the bombing to derail peace efforts, and demanded an independent probe.
“It seems to be part of a conspiracy, aimed at sabotaging the ongoing freedom movement,” said Syed Ali Shah Geelani, head of the hard-line pro-Pakistan faction of Kashmir’s main separatist alliance.
Police detained Geelani along with three other separatist leaders and 40 followers yesterday after they set out for Pulwama to show sympathy for victims and their families.
Authorities said the separatists were detained to keep the peace.
Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf held Kashmiri extremist groups responsible and said the violence was unlikely to end soon.
Indian and Pakistani leaders will “have to be bold enough” to stand up to the militants who aim to derail ongoing peace talks, Musharraf told The Associated Press in an interview yesterday. “It does cause some problems, but not much,” said Musharraf during a tour of Australia. “We do understand that even if (India and Pakistan) reach a peace agreement ... we should still expect some extremists who would not be agreeing and who would carry on.”
Kashmir is at the core of decades of rivalry between India and Pakistan. Both countries hold a portion of the Himalayan region — over which they have fought two wars — but claim it entirely. Separatist leaders, on visit to Pakistan, yesterday called for Pakistan and India to open more routes for Kashmiris to travel across their divided homeland in order to help settle a decades-old dispute between South Asia’s nuclear rivals.
The Kashmiri separatists are due to return home to the Indian side of the border tomorrow after a two-week visit. “We feel there has to be more people-to-people contact. There have to be more confidence-building measures announced. More routes, which have been blocked since 1947, need to be opened,” Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a top Kashmiri leader, told reporters in Islamabad.
The United States, which supports more than a year and a half of peace efforts between the South Asian neighbors, condemned Monday’s bombing and blamed it on militants.
“We have not heard a claim of responsibility, but note that there is a past pattern of violence by militant groups when peace overtures are underway,” the US Embassy in New Delhi said in a statement.
