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Indian Border Forces Kill 12 Islamic Militants Trying to Enter From Pakistan

JAMMU, India (AP) - Indian border forces killed at least 12 suspected Islamic guerrillas trying to cross a cease-fire line separating Indian and Pakistani forces in disputed Kashmir province, police said Wednesday.

The guerrillas were killed Tuesday night in two separate shootouts in the Ramgarh sector, about 30 miles southwest of Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu-Kashmir state, police said.

Eight Bangladeshi nationals were killed in the first shootout, and four Islamic militants were killed in the second, Jammu police said. The nationalities of the four were not yet known.

Police said they had arrested another Islamic militant trying to enter India.

Also on Wednesday, police in Srinagar, the state's summer capital, said state commandos had killed two militants who were hiding in a house on the outskirts of the city.

The two militants were top commanders of Al-Badr Mujahedeen, a Pakistan-based militant group, police said. They were identified as Hafiz Ahsan Ali and Sayeed Tula Ahmed, both Pakistani nationals.

Ashok Suri, the state's police chief, said that with the killings police had smashed the Al-Badr Mujahedeen's network.

More than a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting Indian security forces since 1989 to separate Kashmir from India. The 12-year insurgency has killed at least 30,000 people according to government estimates. Human rights groups say the figure is twice that.

India accuses Pakistan of training, arming and funding the militants. Islamabad denies the charge.

India and Pakistan have fought two wars in the last five decades over Kashmir. India controls two-thirds of the Himalayan territory while Pakistan rules the rest.

India alleges that there are several camps in the Pakistan-occupied part of Kashmir where militants are trained in guerrilla warfare and then sent into India.

Following the U.S.-led strikes in Afghanistan it was feared Taliban soldiers could move into Indian-controlled Kashmir through Pakistan. However, on Tuesday the Indian government said there had been no reports of Taliban soldiers heading to Kashmir.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001