NEW DELHI: Militants in the Kashmir valley appear to have begun a concentrated campaign of attacks on Indian Army and paramilitary troops in what they describe as a battle for independence from India.

They are also calling for general strikes, keeping people off the streets when troops respond by firing into neighborhoods where snipers hide. In the last week, several soldiers have been killed each day as grenades are thrown at patrols in the streets.

The militants say that general strikes called hartal, also demonstrate their ability to bring daily life to a standstill in many towns, Separatists also organize street demonstrations and marches. The Government has responded by imposing curfews in some areas of up to 22 hours a day.

In an interview on June 7 just outside Srinagar, militants of the Kashmir Student Liberation Front, one of more than a dozen major independence groups operating in the valley said that ultimately their battle could only be won through sniper attacks, explosions at military installations and attempts to cut supply lines of New Delhi’s troops.

Warfare in the streets, they acknowledged, would entail too many casualties and could dampen support. Militants seem convinced that over the last few months the people of Kashmir have become much more willing to back an armed insurrection, however, at the cost of bloodshed.

“We have the doctors at our back, the lawyers at our back,” said a militant with a degree in business administration. “Once we ask for freedom, we all have to give our blood.”

Meeting militants in the Kashmir Valley is easy enough for an outsider, who is guided by unarmed sympathizers into neighborhoods that seem to be no go areas for the Governments forces, Leaders of the Student Liberation Front, a radical offshoot of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, agreed to be interviewed in a farmer’s field, while other farmers, serving as lookouts, pretended to be working.

What is more difficult to determine is how many armed militants there are in the Kashmir valley, where they get their arms and training and what long term strategies they can devise while splintered into so many groups.

Jagmohan who was governor of the state until his dismissal at the end of May, after Indian forces fired on a funeral procession, said in an interview on June 13 that he would put the number of “dangerous” guerrillas in Srinagar city at about 25, with 500 “very dangerous” militants scattered around the valley.

He added however, that it was difficult to assign numbers to organizations because guerrillas could bury 100 guns in a garden and when the time seemed right, dig them up and there would be 100 more fighters.

Mr. Jagmohan who uses only one name, said the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and the Student Front were strong in the Srinagar area. The Muslim HizbulMujahidin, which he believes is receiving the bulk of what support is coming from Pakistan had strongholds in Baramulla, So pore and other smaller towns.

Most officials who have studied the militancy say that they believe the Hizbul Mujahidin is also the most fundamentalist of the Islamic groups, although many militants use Islamic slogans and impose strict Islamic laws to emphasize their culture.

Jammu and Kashmiris the only state in India with a majority of Muslims most of whom live in Kashmir Valley. The general strike in the valley was called by a smaller group, the Tehrik Huryat Kashmir, India’s national news agency said. All the guerrilla organisations are outlawed.

Militants in the Student Liberation Front including a man introduced as an area commander, denied that they were getting weapons or training in Pakistan. They said they had established camps in the countryside around Srinagar. Weapons, they said, could be bought from demoralized Indian troops.

There are conflicting reports about the porosity of the border with Pakistan, a disputed line drawn and redrawn after three wars.

Mr. Jagmohan said he had succeeded in getting most of the border sealed, a contention that is supported by antiIndian Kashmiris who say that people in frontier villages have begun coming to Srinagar rather than fleeing to Pakistan if in danger.

In New Delhi, however, officials continue to insist that armed insurgents are crossing the border daily and that thousands more are waiting in reserve on the Pakistan side.

Article extracted from this publication >> June 29, 1990