India Claims: At Least 19 Die in Kashmir Violence

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, February 16, 2002

India Claims: At Least 19 Die in Kashmir Violence

At least 19 people, including a teen-age girl, were killed Friday in separatist violence in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, Indian security forces said.

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At least 19 people, including a teen-age girl, were killed Friday in separatist violence in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, Indian security forces said.

Nine suspected Islamic militants were killed in a fierce three-hour gunbattle in Jammu-Kashmir state as they tried to cross the border from Pakistan into the Indian territory, army spokesman Ranjeev Lal said.

The shootout took place in Mendhar, 120 miles northwest of Jammu, the state's winter capital.

More than a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting India since 1989 for Indian Kashmir's independence or its merger with Pakistan, which controls about one-third of the region. India accuses Pakistan of training and funding the militants, a charge Islamabad denies.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, meanwhile, accused Pakistan of providing safe haven for terrorists and said Afghan Taliban fighters were hiding inside its territory.

"Most of the Taliban fighters are still hiding there. Pakistan must arrest them and hand them over to the international community," Vajpayee said at an election meeting in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Lal said the militants who tried to cross into Indian territory Friday were suspected to be members of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

In another incident, the army killed five militants hiding in a mountain forest near Surankote, 130 miles northwest of Jammu, Lal said.

Police said paramilitary forces also killed four militants belonging to militant Hezb-ul Mujahedeen group in the northwest Kupwara district.

Elsewhere in the region a teen-age girl was killed in separatist violence, while a village worker was severely wounded, police said.

Gunfire across the border has occurred daily since India and Pakistan sent hundreds of thousands of troops to their frontier and placed them on war alert after a Dec. 13 attack by militants on the Indian Parliament.

Pakistan denied India's charge of involvement. The Islamabad government has since banned the two groups, including the Lashkar, that India accused of carrying out the attack.

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