Violence in the Valley: Nawaz-Singh meeting to go ahead despite Kashmir attack

13 killed in Indian-administered Kashmir after police station, army camp stormed.

NEW YORK/ NEW DELHI:

Pakistan and India have resolved the to go ahead with their proposed meeting of premiers in New York despite the militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi claimed was carried out by infiltrators from across the Line of Control.

Three militants stormed a police station and an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir on Thursday, killing 13 in an attack both the Indian prime minister and the state’s chief minister said was aimed at derailing peace talks between India and Pakistan.

According to police officials, the militants, who were dressed in army fatigues, lobbed grenades and opened fire at the Hiranagar police station near the border with Pakistan, around 200 kilometres from Srinagar.

They then hijacked a truck and drove to a nearby army base in Samba district in the southernmost part of Indian-administered Kashmir where a fierce gunbattle with soldiers took place and Indian tanks were deployed, eyewitnesses and police said. The day-long gunbattle ended with all three militants killed inside the base, director general of police Ashok Prasad told AFP.

“This attack in Jammu is aimed at derailing the dialogue process,” said Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned ‘the heinous terrorist attack’ on the police station and army base in a statement, but pledged that it would not deter them from resolving problems with Pakistan through dialogue. Describing the incident as an ‘attack on peace’, he said those responsible for the attack did not want talks with Pakistan to succeed.

Later, Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said there were militants on both sides of the border trying to derail talks and they would not be allowed to succeed.

In the immediate wake of the attack, the hardline Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanded that Manmohan Singh call off his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart.

“Mr Prime Minister… [Please] cancel your meeting with Nawaz Sharif,” said BJP leader Sushma Swaraj on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/SushmaSwarajbjp/status/383217811247480833

Party president Rajnath Singh called for discontinuing talks with Pakistan in any form.

BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi too criticised the central government for proceeding with the talks following the attack.

Meanwhile, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said he was looking forward to his meeting with his Indian counterpart while talking to reporters inside the UN building.

“I will be very happy to meet him (Singh) and we hope to pick up the threads from where we left in 1999,” the South Asian News Agency (SANA) quoted Nawaz as saying.

Describing Thursday’s attack as “one more in a series of provocations and barbaric actions by the enemies of peace,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it clear his government would not let terrorists disrupt the dialogue process with Pakistan. “Such attacks will not deter us and will not succeed in derailing our efforts to find a resolution to all problems through a process of dialogue.”

In a response, Pakistan’s High Commission in New Delhi issued a statement strongly condemning “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.” “Our hearts go out in sympathy to the families of all those who fell victim to the acts of terrorist violence in Jammu today,” the statement said. “It is imperative,” the statement concluded, “that senseless acts of violence do not deter us from pursuing a path to a better future for our peoples.”

Details of the attack

A hitherto unknown organisation, the Shohada (martyrs) Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack. In a call made to the Press Trust of India, the group said the militants who carried out the attack were locals of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, however, claimed the militants carried out the latest attacks after crossing the border on Thursday morning, in a reference to Pakistan.

Police and witnesses said the attackers targeted the police station before hijacking a truck and driving in the direction of the army base. “Four policemen and two civilians were killed by the militants in the attack on the police station,” police official Prasad said. Two other policemen and a civilian were injured in the attack.

A senior Indian Army officer said four soldiers, including an officer, were then killed in the gunbattle inside the army base.

According to the home minister, the officer in question was a lieutenant colonel of the Indian Army. He added that three soldiers were injured in the attack as well and later succumbed to their injuries.

Separately, the Indian Army spokesman said Indian forces were battling four groups of militants in the north of Indian-administered Kashmir, where he said 12 people were thought to have been killed.


Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2013.