SRINAGAR INDIA: The first Red Cross team to visit India’s Jammu and Kashmir state was welcomed by thousands of slogan-shouting demonstrators and some people staged a strike their leaders said.
A four-member team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) held rare talks. with pro-independence groups fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan region.
But the ICRC allowed into Kashmir for the first time by the Indian government to provide humanitarian relief has maintained it was not interested in politics.
We do not want to be involved with any politics Mianrad Studer the JCRC’s Delhi-based official said recently after India allowed the group to visit Kashmir.
Our mandate is clearly to provide humanitarian relief. We do not have the same approach as human rights groups he said Residents in Srinagar summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir observed a strike called by Moslem militants paralyzing traffic and forcing the closure of shops and government offices.
Approval for the tour followed India’s decision to allow four European ambassadors to visit Kashmir last month and meet militant organizations. India does not allow human rights Soups to visit Kashmir where its security forces battling a four-year-old Separatist uprising are frequently accused of human rights violations.
In the southern city of Ananthan residents marched to protest over the alleged rape of two women by members of the Indian security forces. India denies charges of rape and torture of militants and their families by Indian security forces calling them Propaganda but New Delhi says some People have been killed so far.
Mr. Sohan Singh Randhawa center meets with Queen Elizabeth IL and
Members of Parliament on his trip to Belize
Article extracted from this publication >> April 1, 1994
