 |
| Monday,
March 19, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
|
Pak
agencies change strategy for ‘fidayeen’ NC leader
among 4 killed in J&K Shah for
tripartite talks on Kashmir Hashim
Qureshi attacks ISI |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Pak agencies change strategy for ‘fidayeen’ Jammu, March 18 Pakistani agencies have slightly altered their plan of using Fidayeen for storming Army camps. Under the new strategy Fidayeen have been directed to lay ambushed and blow up the convoys of security forces on the plea that in storming the Army or police camps the members of the suicide squads would get killed. The agencies across the border do not want the rate of elimination of Fidayeen at the hands of security forces to go up because it needed lot of money and motivation to raise one group of Fidayeen. Since the Pakistani agencies have recruited a large number of youths from Pakistan and occupied Kashmir for fighting “jehad” in Kashmir and several hundred Kashmiri youths have crossed over to Pakistan for receiving arms training more camps have been opened in Kotli and Kohata where the ISI and the Army experts have been imparting crash weapons training to them. The agencies across the border are said to be planning to send trained militants who could handle all sorts of sophisticated weapons and high grade explosives, including laying of landmines, to Jammu and Kashmir for giving stronger teeth to the ongoing anti-India armed campaign. The idea behind this is not only to weaken and demoralise the Indian security forces but to discourage moderates in the separatist camps in accepting negotiation with the Government of India. Latest reports said top militant outfits, including the Hizbul Mujahideen, the Lashkar-i-Toiba and the Al Badar have cast their lot with Syed Ali Shah Geelani, considered a “hawk” in the separatist Hurriyat Conference. In the rift between Mr Geelani and the moderates in the Hurriyat Conference, led by its Chairman, Prof, Abdul Gani Bhat, the former has gained open support from the Pakistani agencies and the rebel outfits. If the moderates believe that Mr Geelani has been sidelined, the real position that has developed in Kashmir is that Syed Ali Shah Geelani has emerged stronger than others in the valley. This was evident from the total response his call for Kashmir bandh in protest against the desecration of holy Koran in Delhi received in the valley on Friday. A number of gun-wielding militants had moved from place to place in the valley to ensure that none dared to violate the call for the bandh. Mr Geelani’s rise has cast a shadow on the Chief Commander Operations of Hizbul Mujahideen, Abdul Majid Dar, who shot into the limelight when he announced a unilateral ceasefire in July last. His ceasefire was revoked within one week and since then the hawks in the separatist camps have been suspecting his credentials. The Hizbul Mujahideen chief, Syed Salahuddin, who has been camping in Pakistan for the past three years, has renewed his old equation with Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the two have directed the rebel cadre not to act on the advice of Abdul Majid Dar. This indicates that anyone showing support for peace initiative becomes a suspect in the eyes of the hardliners whose sole motive was to force India to either resume talks with Pakistan or hold tripartite parleys for resolving the Kashmir issue. |
|
NC leader among 4 killed in J&K Srinagar, March 18 An official spokesman said militants raided Ghulam Mohammad Ganai’s residence at Kulipora village in Badgam district late last night, killing the NC block president and injuring constable Abdul Majid posted at the residence. A Pakistani militant was killed in an encounter with a joint party of the J and K Police and BSF at Sikhbagh in the Lal Bazaar locality of Srinagar, he said. In another incident, militants shot dead SPO Mukhtar Ahmad after intercepting a bus in Pulwama district last evening, the spokesman said, adding that the panic-stricken driver lost control of the bus which turned turtle, killing one passenger while injuring two others. Meanwhile, an Army captain was critically injured when he accidentally stepped over a landmine, placed to stop infiltration from across the border, near the Line of Control in the Uri sector of Baramula district yesterday, official sources said. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir government has released Rs 75 lakh for payment as ex gratia relief to the next of kin of those killed in militancy-related incidents, official sources said here. The Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Mr Khurshid Ahmad Ganai, released the amount to the Deputy Commissioners of Anantnag, Pulwama, Srinagar and Kupwara with a direction to expeditiously sanction and provide ex gratia relief, they said. With this the total amount of ex gratia relief released in favour of these districts has come to Rs 11.74 crore. JAMMU: Day curfew was lifted in the Jawahar Nagar area of Rajouri in Jammu division following an improvement in the law and order situation, the police said. However, the night curfew will continue as a “precautionary measure”, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Rajouri, Mr K.A. Khan, said. The police and paramilitary troops remained deployed in sensitive areas of the town and that Army was also conducting patrols to maintain law and order. The curfew was clamped in the area and Army called in after groups of people, protesting the alleged burning of the Koran in Delhi recently, took to the streets damaging shops and assaulting people of the minority community.
PTI |
|
Shah for tripartite talks on Kashmir Jammu, March 18 “It should be left to the people of the state to decide whether to live with India or Pakistan or independently,” he said while addressing reporters here last evening. Mr Shah, president of the Jammu and Kashmir Awami National Conference (JKNAC), said: “The matter can be discussed when all three parties — India, Pakistan and people of the state — sit together for a peaceful solution of the issue.” He said his party was forced to postpone the Jammu and Kashmir peace conference to be held on March 17-18 in Jammu city because of the non-availability of visas to most of the invitees from (PoK) and other countries like the UK, USA and Canada. Without the participation of these leaders, the conference would have been a futile exercise, Mr Shah said, adding that the conference was
proposed to build a platform for tripartite talks with the involvement of political and non-political personalities on both sides of the Line of Control
(LoC) and other parts of the world. PTI |
|
Hashim Qureshi attacks ISI New Delhi, March 18 Qureshi, who later formed the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Liberation Party, said his return to India had caused “much of a discomfort for the Pakistani rulers and their agents.” In a statement issued by his office in Holland, where he spent nearly two decades in exile, he said “I laughed at the Pakistani media dancing to the tune of its masters in the ISI and terming me as an Indian agent.” Qureshi, who was arrested on December 29 last year at Indira Gandhi International Airport here, said Pakistan and its agents had only seen “freedom fighters” like Ammanullah Khan, who had sold themselves to agencies like the ISI.
PTI |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 121 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
