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| Sunday, 3 November 2002 |
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Kashmir chief sworn in hours after grenade attack SRINAGAR, India, Nov 2 (Reuters) - A 66-year-old Indian former home minister was sworn in on Saturday as chief of rebellion-torn Jammu and Kashmir state just hours after suspected Muslim rebels tried to blow up his house. Chief minister Mufti Mohammad Syed favours talks with separatists battling Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan territory to end a 13-year-old rebellion that has claimed at least 35,000 lives. "It is a historical day... We have challenges ahead and we have realisation but we have to work jointly. I pray to God that I come up to the expectations of the people," Syed told reporters after the swearing-in ceremony. Kashmir has been the trigger of two of the three wars fought between India and Pakistan since independence in 1947 and Syed's coalition does indeed have its work cut out. "Let us not underestimate the problems that the government faces," said political analyst Kalim Bahadur who teaches at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. "The Kashmiri people need peace, stability and economic development." Hours before the swearing-in ceremony, rebels threw grenades at Syed's house, injuring a police constable. Syed, who was at home at that time, escaped unhurt and there was no damage to the house. Syed, who had a brief stint as federal home minister in the late 1980s, has returned from the political wilderness after a strong showing by his regional group in elections driven largely by his more charismatic eldest daughter, Mehbooba Mufti. He leads an alliance of his People's Democratic Party (PDP) and India's main opposition Congress party. The coalition, seeking to win support of Kashmiris, has pledged to release political prisoners, inquire into custodial deaths and defer implementation of a federal anti-terror law. The Congress and the PDP together control 36 seats in the 87-member Jammu and Kashmir assembly after no clear winner emerged in an election marred by a separatist boycott and guerrilla violence. The PDP and Congress swept the National Conference, which dominated state politics for five decades, from power. India had banked on the elections to boost the legitimacy of its rule in the territory, which was at the heart of a 10-month military faceoff with nuclear rival Pakistan. Separatist groups and Pakistan have dismissed the election, saying it cannot be a substitute for a U.N.-supervised plebiscite to decide the future of Kashmiris. India and Pakistan last month announced steps to pull back troops massed on the border since an attack last December on the Indian parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based guerrillas. But the two countries have shown no signs of moving towards talks which have been on hold since Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee held an unsuccessful summit with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf last year. Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting New Delhi's rule in Jammu and Kashmir, the country's only Muslim-majority state. Pakistan denies giving material support to the rebels in Kashmir, but says it provides moral support to the Kashmiri people in what it calls their struggle for self-determination. |
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