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| Sunday, 16 March 2003 |
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Indian Kashmir district under curfew after hotel siege JAMMU, India, March 15 (AFP) - Indian Kashmir's southern district of Poonch was under tight curfew Saturday after seven people were killed in a siege of a hotel by Islamic militants, police said. Army and paramilitary forces were marching through the district, which lies along the disputed border with Pakistan some 240 kilometres (150 miles) northwest of the winter capital Jammu, after the daylong standoff at the hotel Friday. Three civilians, three policemen and one of the militants were killed when soldiers fought into the hotel following a tip-off that rebels were hiding there, police said. Officials said sectarian tension was high in Poonch, which has a large community of Kashmir's minority Hindus. Elsewhere in Kashmir, suspected Islamic rebels burnt down 45 houses belonging to Hindus in Rajouri district, 150 kilometres (93 miles) from Jammu, police said. Most of the houses were empty as the residents had fled following a recent attack on their village, a police official said. About 200,000 Hindus have migrated from the Kashmir Valley since the beginning of an Islamic insurgency against Indian rule broke out in 1989. More than 37,500 people have been killed in violence in Indian Kashmir, according to security forces. Separatists put the death toll twice as high. |
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