A Pakistan-based militant group on yesterday threatened to disrupt a historic new bus service across the military line that divides Kashmir if it led to more "atrocities" by Indian forces in the disputed Himalayan region.
The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan on Wednesday announced that the beginning of the service April 7 -- the most concrete outcome yet from a year of peace talks, raising hopes for a permanent rapprochement between the two nuclear-armed countries.
The decision was greeted with joy by families separated by Kashmir's militarized border, the Line of Control.
It will be first such road link between the two portions of Kashmir since Pakistan and India fought their first war there in 1947.
But militant groups fighting in Indian-held Kashmir for independence or merger with Pakistan viewed it as a setback.
"This will weaken the idea of Kashmir uniting with Pakistan. This is a conspiracy by India to weaken jihad," Mufti Abdur Rauf, a spokesman for the outlawed militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, told reporters.
"We will see what benefits India wants to get from this bus service. If it infiltrates spies into Azad Kashmir [Pakistan-held Kashmir] and there is an increase in atrocities by Indian security forces in the occupied Kashmir [Indian-held Kashmir], we will certainly try to stop it," he said.
The buses will travel along a rutted mountain road in the folds of the Himalayas linking Muzzafarabad on the Pakistani side with Srinagar on the Indian side.
Despite the bus service agreement, the two governments remain poles apart on their territorial dispute over Kashmir, cause of two of their three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
Both sides claim the region in its entirety.
More than 66,000 people have died since an Islamic insurgency began about 15 years ago, many at the hands of Indian troops.
New Delhi accuses Pakistan of funding and training the rebels. Islamabad insists it gives only moral and political support.
After talks in Islamabad on Wednesday, visiting Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh spoke positively about the future of the peace process, but he also cautioned that any progress could only be achieved if attacks are curtailed.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS