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Pak-India tensions cast familiar shadow over Kashmir

* Kashmiri political analyst says Mumbai attacks risk derailment of peace process

SRINAGAR: Leaked intelligence on who might be behind the terrorist attacks in Mumbai has been greeted with a deepening sense of dread and foreboding by Muslims in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK).

An emerging consensus suggests the well-planned assault was the work of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba - a Pakistan-based banned militant group fighting against Indian rule in the disputed Muslim-majority region.

Involvement in Mumbai attacks: That means an automatic escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan, which in turn spells trouble for Kashmir, over which the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947.

One of the Mumbai gunmen holding hostages in a Jewish cultural centre had suggested that the treatment of Muslims in IHK was one motivation behind the attack.

Rights groups like Amnesty International have criticised the sweeping powers India grants its security forces in IHK and accused them of using torture to quash the long-running Muslim insurgency in the region.

Since June, around 50 unarmed Muslim protesters have been shot dead in unrest sparked by a state government plan to grant land to a Hindu pilgrim trust.

Tahir Mohiudin, a respected Kashmiri political analyst, said the brutal events in Mumbai risked a complete derailment of the India-Pakistan peace process that began in 2004 following a ceasefire agreement.

Although the process has yielded little in terms of resolving the main disputes between the two countries, it has witnessed a major downturn in insurgency-linked violence.

The Lashkar first came into the spotlight when its fighters launched a suicide attack on a border guard camp, killing officers and soldiers.

It has been quick to deny any involvement in the Mumbai attacks. “Unfortunately whenever bombs go off in India, Lashkar is immediately blamed without any prior investigation,” its spokesman Abdullah Gaznavi told AFP on Thursday.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a senior Kashmiri separatist politician, who favours independence from both India and Pakistan, said Kashmiris had been as shocked and disturbed by what happened in Mumbai as everyone else in the world. “I appeal to the media not to link these attacks with our political struggle. We don’t approve of killing innocent people,” Farooq said. afp

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