- SRINAGAR, India (Reuters)
- A mood of optimism after the surprise election last month of a new state
government in Indian-ruled Kashmir has evaporated in a bloody round of
militant attacks.
-
- "Kashmir is hopeless," said student Adil Shafi,
after suspected Muslim militants killed more than 40 people in attacks
over the weekend, including 13 killed when gunmen stormed two temples in
Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir state.
-
- The attacks ended a honeymoon period for new Chief Minister
Mufti Mohammad Syed, who took office this month promising to bring a healing
touch to the disputed region.
-
- "We are back to square one," 21-year-old Shafi
said.
-
- The violence continued Tuesday, when unidentified gunmen
shot dead three members of a family in their house in Budgam district,
west of Srinagar. No group claimed responsibility.
-
- Frisking and night curfews, lifted for the first time
in a decade as a goodwill gesture during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan,
resumed Tuesday.
-
- Soldiers in battle fatigues ordered Shafi and his classmate
to raise their arms on a street of summer capital Srinagar, and searched
them for weapons.
-
- A short distance away, soldiers stalked through a passenger
bus as the crisp crimson leaves of the city's huge Chinar trees fell in
hundreds in one of the world's most beautiful regions.
-
- "After the sudden increase in militant attacks we
intensified area domination patrols, frisking and surprise checking,"
a senior paramilitary official told Reuters. "We cannot now afford
to lower our guard."
-
- India has blamed Pakistan for the renewed violence in
Muslim-majority Kashmir, which the state government said was aimed at wrecking
its peace initiatives.
-
- "It was expected that as circumstances in the Kashmir
Valley became more cooperative, and there was greater goodwill for the
government, those who have taken recourse to violence would hit back,"
senior state Muzaffar Hussain Beig told Reuters.
-
- The ruling coalition of Syed's People's Democratic Party
(PDP) and country's main opposition Congress has released many political
prisoners and vowed to probe custodial deaths as a first step to end the
revolt.
-
- "The real war is in the hearts and minds of the
people and that is where we want to score a victory over those who propagate
or spread violence," Beig said."
-
- Islamabad denies direct involvement in the 13-year-old
revolt in which more than 35,000 people have died, but says it gives moral
and diplomatic support to what it calls the legitimate struggle of the
Kashmiri people for self-determination.
-
- The nuclear-armed rivals accused each other Tuesday of
opening heavy fire across the Line of Control separating the two armies
in Kashmir.
-
- Two Pakistanis, including a girl, were killed and 11
wounded in overnight firing by Indian forces, officials in Pakistan's side
of Kashmir said.
-
- Police in Indian Kashmir said a soldier died and three
civilians were wounded when Pakistani troops fired artillery shells across
the control line in Kashmir.
-
- "Now I don't think situation will change in Kashmir...not
in the near future and let us learn to live with it," Saba Javid,
a teacher, said after she was frisked by policewomen.
-
- Earlier Tuesday, three school children died when a bomb
they were playing with exploded in Kupwara district, which borders Pakistan,
police said. Another child was wounded in the explosion in the area where
gunbattles between Indian forces and militants are common.
-
- "They were fiddling with the explosive device when
it went off," a police officer said.
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