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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 2, No. 44, May 17, 2004
Data and
assessments from SAIR can be freely published in any form
with credit to the South Asia Intelligence Review of the
South Asia Terrorism Portal
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J&K: Democracy
Without Freedom
Guest Writer: Praveen Swami
New Delhi Chief of Bureau, Frontline magazine, and
also writes for its sister publication, The Hindu
Elections can be fair, it would seem, and at once profoundly
unfree.
Voters in the small village of Mirhama queuing up to vote
on the morning of May 5 found a Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin (HM)
poster pasted on the wall alongside the polling station.
"The Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin considers it its primary purpose
to punish those who have aided this election," it read.
"Such people should not confuse our benevolence with weakness.
They should know the Mujaheddin have a programme in place
which will make the Indian rulers quake." "We want to vote,"
said Manzoor Ahmad, "but we have to answer to the Mujaheddin
tonight, when none of these soldiers will be around. So,
some of the people in our village asked the soldiers to
coral us to the polling booth." Mohammad Rafiq was more
blunt. "The only safe voter tonight," he said, "is the one
who has a couple of lathi (baton) blows to show along
with the ink on his finger."
Several issues arising from the just-concluded Lok Sabha
(Lower House of Parliament) elections in Jammu and Kashmir
(J&K) need clear-eyed examination. First, what do the election
results in fact tell us? Has there been, as several media
commentators have claimed, a revival of the National Conference
(NC)? And what do voting patterns in J&K mean for the future
of political life in the State? As important, though, the
results provide a prism through which the working of terrorism
in the State may be understood. The wages of a security
policy which protects the state but not citizens need to
be examined, and solutions considered.
Some within the NC have sought to represent the two Lok
Sabha seats they have won in the Valley, to the single one
taken by the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), as
the first signs of a renaissance.
The NC had sought, in the course of the election campaign,
to appropriate several issues traditionally projected by
Islamists, and elements of the PDP: criticism of alleged
atrocities by Indian forces, demands for dialogue with terrorist
groups, including the HM, and claims that the Union Government
was hostile to Muslims at large. At one stage, former Chief
Minister Farooq Abdullah had even threatened to revive a
movement for a plebiscite in J&K, and had refused to attend
the marriage of his daughter to a Hindu.
Two seats notwithstanding, the rightward lurch has done
the NC little good: notably, the party would have lost the
Baramulla seat by a wide margin had the PDP contested it
along with its coalition ally, the Congress. Its share of
votes polled in the Kashmir Valley has increased only marginally,
from 34.9 per cent in the decisive 2002 Assembly Elections
to 38.4 per cent now. Had this been an Assembly election,
the NC would have won 21 seats in the Valley, up from 18
in 2002
However, this gain needs to be read in the context of an
even sharper rise in support for the PDP-Congress alliance.
Where the two parties together picked up 40.7 per cent of
the Valley vote in 2002, they have now won 48.5 per cent
of the vote. Of this, the Congress share is only 9.2 per
cent - but through its 'friendly' contest with the PDP in
Baramulla, it has proved its coalition ally will loose ground
through Kashmir unless it concedes some space to its junior
partner. Both will have to work together, or perish alone.
As such, the election results have also shown no
party can claim to speak for all the people of the Valley,
a proposition underlined by the fact that the overwhelming
bulk of PDP assembly segment wins, 13 of 22, were concentrated
in south Kashmir, while the overwhelming majority for the
NC, 13 of 21, came from Srinagar. In a curious inversion
of history, it would seem, the National Conference is emerging
as the party of the city, and the PDP occupying its position
as the party of the peasantry.
Close analysis of the results in Jammu province throws up
similar surprises. Although the Congress has won both Lok
Sabha seats from Jammu, its victory masks a revival of the
Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) fortunes. Where the BJP won
just one Assembly seat in 2002, it has now taken 15 segments,
ten from Jammu city and its surrounding border areas. The
Congress has also raised its share of the segment-cake,
from 15 in 2002 to 20 now. Both parties, together, seemed
to have squeezed out smaller players, like the Jammu Kashmir
Panthers Party, which could win just a single seat this
time around - a decisive repudiation of its hostile regional-chauvinist
stance against the Congress-PDP alliance, in which it is
a partner.
Here again, the National Conference's new-found efforts
to appropriate Islamist causes cost it not a little. Its
biggest reverses came in the form of a wholesale desertion
of its traditional supporters among the Gujjar tribe in
the districts of Rajouri and Poonch. Gujjar leaders had
been protesting against the PDP's advocacy of granting reservations
for the upper castes, Hindu and Muslim, residing in the
mountains. Instead of acknowledging these concerns, the
NC put up a Rajput Muslim candidate, and paid the price.
In 2002, the NC won nine seats in Jammu; now it would pick
up a single segment.
The lessons? The transfiguration of politics in J&K that
began in 2002 is proceeding apace. Any of the two main actors
in Kashmir must ally with one of the two main actors from
Jammu to hold power. In a rational world, this would lead
to alliances which could defuse regional tensions, and enable
dialogue and reconciliation. It could, however, also lead
to calls to sunder the State on its ethnic-communal lines
once and for all: something which both underestimates the
cultural diversity in the State, and which would have calamitous
repercussions for Hindu-Muslim relations across India.
All of this, of course, assumes that the elections in J&K
were fought in normal circumstances, which they weren't.
The Kashmir Valley results contain within them an ugly subtext:
the use of terrorist groups to facilitate democratic victory.
Consider, for example, the case of southern Kashmir. Half
of the PDP's votes came from high-turnout segments, notably
Dooru, Devsar, Noorabad, Pahlgam and Kokernag. In all these
areas, the PDP is strong - and so is the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin.
Yet, the HM focussed its anti-election campaign - comprising
attacks on political workers and posters warning citizens
with reprisals if they voted - in areas where the NC was
strong. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference's (APHC's)
rival factions also concentrated their boycott campaign
in NC dominated areas. The end result? The PDP won massive
leads in its segments, while its opponents' supporters bunkered
down at home on election day.
What the election results do show is that the PDP's relationship
with the HM, troubled as it might be, has paid it ground-level
dividends. Anantnag Member of Parliament (MP) Mehbooba Mufti
- Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's daughter - and
HM 'central division commander' Abdul Rashid Pir, were the
architects of this alliance. In 2001, Pir crossed the Line
of Control along with the then-HM 'supreme commander', Ghulam
Hassan Khan. His introduction to the Valley was part of
a large-scale reshuffle within the HM, intended to marginalise
the pro-dialogue rebel Abdul Majid Dar.
Pir's main task was the construction a new pool of overground
sympathisers, to compensate for diminishing support from
the ranks of the HM's traditional political patron, the
Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), which had backed Dar. Pir successfully
built a wide network of contacts with grass-roots PDP cadre
as well as its top leadership, contacts that were crucial
to the PDP's thumping victory in the 2002 Assembly Elections.
The relationship, however, rapidly soured. One key cause
was the March 2003 elimination of the 'supreme commander'
Ghulam Hassan Khan, who operated under the code-name Engineer
Zamaan. The HM believed their 'supreme commander' was eliminated
several hours after his arrest, with PDP consent.
Whatever the truth, the HM responded by initiating a full-scale
assault on the PDP. Pir is believed to have ordered the
assassination of several PDP cadre, including one of Sayeed's
relatives, in April 2003, and the subsequent bombing of
the Parimpora Fruit Market in Srinagar two months later.
Sources, however, said he subsequently acceded to requests
by a top PDP leader for a peace meeting, along with the
HM's 'southern division commander', Arif Khan. The meeting,
held in the south Kashmir village of Chattergul, ended with
the top PDP leader promising to do all that was possible
to scale back offensive operations against the HM.
Nothing of the kind could, in fact, be secured by the PDP,
although follow-up meetings were held in the Pahalgam area.
In January this year, the HM lost Ghulam Rasool Khan's replacement
as supreme commander, Ghulam Rasool Dar. Soon after, Indian
troops shot dead Arif Khan as well. Pir was now nominated
to hold the job. While many within the HM wanted to end
the relationship with the PDP, Pir prevailed - with the
support of several influential south Kashmir figures, including
Mohammad Abid, the HM's new 'southern division commander',
the Nagbal 'area commander', Ashiq Shah, and Kokernag 'area
commander', Shabbir Bahduri.
Pir was shot dead by Indian forces acting on Intelligence
Bureau (IB) information on May 6 - hours after the end of
polling in the penultimate phase of elections in J&K. He
is likely to be replaced by Amir Khan, a member of the HM's
Pakistan-based Central Jihad Council who also uses the nom
de guerre Khalid Saifullah. Although some HM commanders,
notably Bandipora's Bashir Ahmad Pir, want a change in line
on the PDP, the organisation is likely to value the protection
PDP rule gives its overground apparatus, in the name of
protecting 'innocents and human rights'. In material terms,
many south Kashmir commanders have also secured significant
financial gains, notably in the form of construction contracts
granted to immediate relatives. Politically, the electoral
dividends of the PDP-HM relationship are obvious: and have
led the NC into a competitive effort to win terrorist favour.
Indian armed forces have focussed their election efforts
on protecting candidates and their workers - not on actually
making sure citizens are safe to exercise their political
options. Put simply, politicians are now relatively safe,
but not the people.
Election 2004 was considerably safer than that seen in 2002.
Just 17 political workers were killed in the campaign -
from February to May 7 - a figure that stands in stark contrast
to the 99 lost in 2002. Yet, the results show that organisations
like the HM continue to wield considerable influence over
civil society. The sad fact is that terrorists, not the
Indian state, rule J&K by night. The use of killings as
an index with which to gauge security is profoundly misleading.
Two reforms seem imperative. First, the Indian Army and
Border Security Force (BSF) need to get out of their suicide-attack
shell. Sharp increases in commitments to perimeter security
have brought a near end to night operations, except those
generated on specific information. Knowing that troops will
rarely move out of their camps at night, terrorists take
shelter in nearby villages, recruit their residents, and
target those perceived as pro-India. Significantly, kidnappings
are the one kind of terrorist crime that increased between
2002 and 2003, when they reached levels not seen since 1997.
No prizes are available for guessing who is being targeted.
Some within the Army are sensitive to the need for physical
domination of villages at night, a fact made clear by the
creation of new, locally-raised battalions. These initiatives,
though, need to be institutionalised. Personnel also need
to be freed from Srinagar, the domination of which has become
a reflexive obsession forged during the urban warfare era
of the early 1990s. An estimated 16,000 personnel of all
forces are now in Srinagar, the vast bulk squandered on
static duties and personal protection tasks. Many are simply
posted in poorly designed bunkers from which they can see
little, as such a curious case of Indian forces providing
sitting targets which can be attacked with impunity. Such
numbers, however, are simply no longer needed to protect
the city, and would be better-used providing security in
the countryside.
Finally, some of the self-delusion on attrition among terrorist
ranks needs to be abandoned. From January to May 13, just
353 terrorists have been shot dead across J&K - figures
marginally higher than last year, it is true, but well below
the figures recorded in 2001 and 2002. Given that the kills
constitute just a tenth of the estimated presence of terrorists
in J&K, the lull in cross-border infiltration will do nothing
to significantly dent the capabilities of Pakistan's jihadi
armies. The fact that attacks on security forces have
declined means little. Terrorists, it would seem, have learned
the real lesson: that dominating civil society is more important
than raids and bombings. It is time Indian forces also did
some thinking.
Terror and Democratic
Resilience
Kanchan Lakshman
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management; Assistant
Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution
Democracy and terrorism are opposite poles of the political
continuum, and they came into direct confrontation, once
again, in India's recently concluded elections. By all accounts,
democracy emerged victorious, though terror did inflict
limited damage in some areas.
The Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) elections, as
well as State Assembly elections in four States, were held
under the circumstances of calls for a poll boycott by a
plethora of violent anti-state groups across the country,
widespread voter intimidation, as well as targeted violence
against candidates, party machinery, security force personnel
and civilians. Calls for poll boycott have long been an
essential feature of the terrorists' strategy in the various
theatres of sub-conventional conflict in India.
In Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), for instance, terrorist groups
and their proxy over-ground separatist organisations called
for a boycott, arguing that elections could not resolve
the decades-old conflict. Terrorist cadres attacked politicians,
polling booths and party offices since campaigning started
for the four-phased elections held between April 20 and
May 10. The intimidation strategy was clearly illuminated
when the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen (JuM)
stated, after a grenade blast targeted an election rally
of the State Health Minister and Congress Party nominee
for Udhampur parliamentary constituency, Choudhury Lal Singh,
in the Banihal area of Doda district on April 14, that it
would "continue to target election rallies as it was only
by force it can demonstrate that parliamentary elections
could not be held in Kashmir."
In the four phases of polling, a total of 31 persons were
reportedly killed and 109 incidents of grenade attacks,
Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blasts, firing incidents
and other poll-related incidents of violence occurred in
the entire State. These numbers compare favourably with
the 2002 State Legislative Assembly elections, which was
marred by higher levels of violence and intimidation. Various
terrorist formations had organized a series of attacks against
political parties, security forces and the electorate in
2002, and 41 political workers were killed in the month
of September alone. There was also an organised attempt
to intimidate civil society ahead of those elections, and
168 civilians succumbed to terrorist attacks between the
beginning of August and September 22, 2002. 1999, the year
of the last Lok Sabha elections, saw the deaths of 49 political
activists. In 1998, the year of the previous Lok Sabha elections,
41 political activists were killed; and the 1996 Assembly
Elections saw 69 such deaths.
The relatively low levels of violence during the 2004 elections
signal the increasing disarray in terrorist ranks as a result
of a series of security forces' successes, as well as some
declines in infiltration from Pakistan. They are, moreover,
also an indication of the resilience of democracy. Despite
intimidation and attacks on top politicians, including the
chief of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), Mehbooba
Mufti, National Conference (NC) chief Omar Abdullah, various
State Ministers, political workers and the general public,
J&K witnessed an voter turnout of 35.11 per cent. While
Baramulla saw a voter turnout of 35.93 per cent, in Jammu
it was 44.34 per cent. However, the terrorists' campaign
was felt in the State capital Srinagar, where the turnout
was just 18.45 per cent and in the Anantnag constituency
where it was 14.76 per cent.
While the poll boycott is reported to have succeeded in
towns and cities, as visible in the figures for Srinagar,
people voted in large numbers in the violence-afflicted
regions and the areas close to the Line of Control (LoC).
A large turnout was also reported from areas where terrorist
cadres attempted to disrupt the electoral exercise with
violence. For instance, in the border town of Uri, where
eleven people died during an attack on an election rally
on April 8, 57.62 per cent polling was recorded. In other
areas close to the LoC, while Lolab witnessed a voter turnout
of 44.15 per cent, Karnah recorded 54.34 per cent. Strikingly,
Gurez, which in the past has been a constant target of Pakistani
shelling, recorded a turnout of 82.72 per cent.
Elsewhere in India, the electorate in some Left
Wing extremist (also called Naxalite) affected
States like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh
and Orissa, also defied threats and coercion to exercise
their franchise in relatively large numbers. A poll boycott
had been called, and a campaign of widespread violence and
intimidation preceded the elections. Two days before the
April 20 polling, senior TDP leader Yerran Naidu survived
a landmine blast near Singupuram in the Srikakulam district.
Earlier, in a similar blast, the then Chief Minister, Chandrababu
Naidu, had a narrow escape on the Tirumal Ghat road in Chittor
district on October 1, 2003. Director General of Police,
S.R. Sukumara disclosed, at the State capital Hyderabad
on April 19, 2004, that there had been 78 Naxalite attacks
during the pre-poll period (the election announcement was
made on February 29). Out of these 78 incidents, TDP activists
were targeted in 32 cases and Bharatiya Janata Party and
Congress in one case each. A 25,000-strong armed police
force and 57,000 civil police personnel were deployed to
ensure free, fair and incident-free elections in Andhra
Pradesh. Despite persistent threats, the turnout in the
State was 69.83 per cent, and areas in which the People's
War Group (PWG)
is active saw relatively large turnouts. For instance, Khammam
in north Telangana witnessed a turnout of 78.53 per cent;
in Warangal it was 75.82 per cent; Karimnagar saw a turnout
of 65.02 per cent; Adilabad: 72.81 per cent; Medak in the
south Telangana region: 71.58 per cent; Srikakulam in north
coastal Andhra witnessed a turnout of 75.46 per cent; at
least 70 per cent of the total electorate in the Guntur
district of south coastal Andhra cast their vote.
In Jharkhand, where the pre-poll campaign was marred by
a series of attacks on security force personnel, the voter
turnout was recorded at 55.71 per cent. Among the more lethal
incidents of pre-poll violence, on the night of April 7,
at least 26 police personnel were killed in a series of
landmine blasts triggered by the proscribed Maoist Communist
Centre (MCC)
in the Saranda forest of West Singhbhum district. The districts
of Palamu, Hazaribagh, Singhbhum and Lohardaga, where Left
Wing extremists dominate, the voter turnout ranged between
49 and 60 per cent.
In Orissa, also affected by significant Left Wing extremism,
while the State-wide turnout was 66.04 per cent, Koraput,
Mayurbhanj and Berhampur, which are particularly affected
by Naxalite subversion, registered a turnout between 60
and 70 per cent. Jehanabad in the State of Bihar, dominated
by the PWG, witnessed a voter turnout of 68.30 per cent.
While there is a growing disillusionment with the Left Wing
extremist ideology, the relatively high voter turnouts are
also an indication of the deepening engagement with the
democratic process in large swathes of 'red-flag' territory
in India. This is crucial, considering the fact that the
Naxalites, who violently espouse the cause of peasant rights
and radical re-distribution of land, have traditionally
boycotted elections besides targeting rich landowners and
state installations. To the extent that the Naxalite groupings
in India have an unwavering commitment to engineering a
militant upsurge, unlike the mainstream Communist parties
or the social democrats, a strategy of poll boycott is 'rational'.
However, fewer incidents of violence and the absence of
visible retribution for 'dissent' (considering the large
voter participation) thus far, possibly indicate a change
in strategy. There are reports of clandestine deals with
one or the other political party or candidate in areas of
Naxalite influence during the elections, though the open
collusion of at least some past elections was not visible.
The only report of retributive violence so far has come
in from the State of Jharkhand, where the MCC killed two
persons, including an 'area commander' on May 7, and punished
several others for their alleged participation in the electoral
process. Earlier, on May 6, the group held a Jan Adalat
('People's Court') at Pokharia village in the Hazaribagh
district, and five persons who had worked as polling agents
of a particular party were assaulted. A day earlier, the
MCC had held another Jan Adalat at Uppargath in the
Chatra district and awarded 'punishment' to 15 villagers
for participating in the elections.
Among the possible reasons for the relatively low-levels
of violence and large voter participation in conflict-afflicted
areas is the exhaustion factor. This could particularly
be seen in J&K where, according to the State police chief
Gopal Sharma, at least 31 senior 'commanders' of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen
(HM),
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM),
have been killed by security forces in the last 18 months.
There are also indications that the handlers of these groups
in Pakistan do not want to vitiate the ongoing détente and
prefer to wait and watch for a 'miracle breakthrough' on
the Kashmir issue.
The discourse on elections in India has, more often than
not, ignored the relatively large-scale participation of
people living in conflict affected areas. In Nagaland, home
to the country's oldest insurgency, a record 91.41 per cent
of the total electorate exercised their franchise. 72.82
per cent of the total electorate exercised their franchise
in the Outer Manipur constituency and 56.23 per cent in
the Inner Manipur constituency, in a State that had witnessed
the most extraordinary campaign of intimidation in the months
preceding the elections, and significant acts of disruption
during the electoral process itself. In the State of Meghalaya,
while 46.89 per cent of the electorate cast its vote in
the capital Shillong, in the Tura constituency, the proportion
was as high as 61.79 per cent. The rebuff to the bullet
was also felt in Tripura, where the ruling Communist Party
of India-Marxist (CPM) has been at the receiving end of
a militancy fuelled largely across the border from Bangladesh.
In the two Lok Sabha seats in Tripura, voter turnout was
67.52 per cent in Tripura West and 66.18 per cent in the
Tripura East constituency. Evidently, voter apathy, a much-used
term among psephologists in India, does not find an echo
in India's Northeast, a region plagued by socio-economic
deprivation and insurgent violence.
It is interesting to contrast these figures against some
of the high profile constituencies in 'peaceful' areas.
In the outgoing Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's constituency
of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, for instance, the turnout was
a meagre 35.41 per cent. In the six constituencies of the
Mumbai metropolis, the average voter turnout was between
44 to 49 per cent; while in the affluent Bangalore South
constituency, it was 48.95 per cent; and in the national
capital of Delhi, the average voter turnout was 47.02 per
cent.
The voter turnout in terrorism-afflicted regions of India
is only a small measure of the fact that terrorist groups
are minority elements within the populations of these areas.
They may be an over-riding part of the everyday life of
the people living in conflict-affected areas, but they are
not dominant politically and are, in fact, unlikely to be
representative in any meaningful way within the democratic
paradigm.
Conducting elections, however, is the relatively easier
aspect of the liberal democratic experiment in India; it
is the institutional consolidation of democracy that is
harder to achieve, and that is why terrorism is unlikely
to fade away in the foreseeable future.
While it may, consequently, be premature to assert that
people are rejecting the idea that power flows from the
barrel of the gun, it is nevertheless the case that the
fundamental features of liberal democracy - political contestation
and civic participation - appear to have triumphed, at least
for the time being.
|
Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts
in South Asia
May
10-16, 2004
  |
Civilian
|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Terrorist
|
Total
|
BANGLADESH
|
0
|
0
|
11
|
11
|
INDIA
|
Assam
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Jammu
&
Kashmir
|
13
|
4
|
23
|
40
|
Left-wing
Extremism
|
5
|
0
|
2
|
7
|
Manipur
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Tripura
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Total (INDIA)
|
18
|
4
|
28
|
50
|
NEPAL
|
15
|
17
|
49
|
81
|
Provisional
data compiled from English language media sources.
|
BANGLADESH
Islamist
vigilante
group
intends
to
establish
Taliban-like
rule:
The
Islamist
vigilante
group,
Jagrata
Muslim
Janata
Bangladesh
(JMJB)
led
by
Bangla
Bhai,
has
been
reportedly
involved
in
subversive
activities
for
the
last
six
years
to
allegedly
establish
a
Taliban-like
rule
in
Bangladesh,
even
though
the
outfit
came
to
limelight
only
recently.
JMJB
leaders
and
activists
have
reportedly
stated
that
their
organization
supports
Islamist
extremist
leaders
and
also
follows
the
ideals
of
the
Taliban
and
spearheads
a
movement
based
on
jehad.
To
achieve
their
objective,
the
JMJB
has
created
a
three-tier
organization
with
estimated
cadre
strength
of
10,000.
Bangla
Bhai
claimed
that
JMJB
is
headquartered
in
Dhaka
but
refused
to
disclose
its
exact
location.
It
allegedly
has
strong
bases
in
the
Khulna,
Satkhira,
Bagerhat,
Jessore,
Chittagong,
Joypurhat,
Rangpur
and
Bogra
districts.
According
to
Daily
Star,
the
JMJB
is
another
name
for
the
Jama'atul
Mujahedin
Bangladesh
(JMB)
which
was
in
the
news
during
2003
and
whose
armed
cadres
fought
with
police
for
hours
in
Jaipurhat
during
August
that
year.
Documents
seized
from
their
secret
training
camp
in
Khetlal,
Jaipurhat,
in
August
2003
indicated
the
outfit's
subversive
plans.
Though
the
police
failed
to
arrest
Rahman,
JMB
'chief
commander',
they
arrested
his
brother
Ataur
Rahman
Ibne
Abdullah
and
18
other
militants.
Rahman
now
associated
with
the
JMJB
and
has
links
with
the
Islami
Chhatra
Shibir
and
Jamaat-e-Islami.
He
is
also
alleged
to
have
traveled
to
many
countries,
including
India,
Pakistan,
Afghanistan
and
Malaysia,
with
the
latest
visit
to
Pakistan
in
2003.
The
Daily
Star,
May
17,
2004;
May
13,
2004.
INDIA
Peaceful
polling
in
last
phase
of
parliament
elections:
Amidst
some
incidents
of
terrorist
violence,
including
grenade
attacks
and
firing
in
which
a
Border
Security
Force
(BSF)
Inspector
and
a
civilian
were
injured,
polling
to
the
Udhampur-Doda
Parliamentary
constituency
on
May
10,
2004,
passed
off
peacefully.
In
election-related
violence,
terrorists
lobbed
a
grenade
on
a
BSF
patrol
party
at
Kali
Masta
in
the
Gool
area
of
Udhampur
district
causing
injuries
to
a
BSF
Inspector.
Terrorists
also
fired
a
grenade
targeting
a
polling
station
at
Chakka
near
Bhaderwah.
The
grenade,
however,
exploded
in
mid-air
without
causing
any
damage.
Separately,
terrorists
opened
firing
targeting
polling
stations
Panjgrain
and
Malothi
Bhalla
in
Bhaderwah
simultaneously.
A
civilian
sustained
injuries
in
the
firing
at
Malothi
Bhalla.
Further,
the
terrorists
also
attacked
the
Patnazi
polling
station
and
a
booth
at
Kither
in
Doda
district
without
causing
any
damage.
A
grenade
attack
on
the
troops
was
reported
from
Hilli
Nullah
in
Bhaderwah.
However,
it
failed
to
cause
any
damage.
Daily
Excelsior,
May
11,
2004.
NEPAL
24
Maoists
and
two
soldiers
killed
in
Bhojpur
district:
At
least
24
Maoist
insurgents
and
two
soldiers
were
reportedly
killed
during
a
clash
at
the
Deurali
Village
Development
Committee
area
of
Bhojpur
district
on
May
12,
2004.
While
17
bodies
of
insurgents
were
recovered
from
the
incident
site,
four
soldiers
sustained
injuries
during
the
clash.
The
Himalayan
Times,
May
13,
2004.
PAKISTAN
Government
hopes
peace
process
will
continue
under
new
Indian
regime:
Pakistan
on
May
13,
2004,
expressed
confidence
that
the
peace
process
with
India
would
continue
despite
the
defeat
of
the
incumbent
Government
led
by
Atal
Behari
Vajpayee
in
the
recently
concluded
elections.
Foreign
Minister
Khurshid
Mehmood
Kasuri
said
Pakistan
was
looking
forward
to
seriously
engaging
with
the
new
Government
in
India
to
promote
the
process
of
peace
and
resolution
of
all
outstanding
issues.
Meanwhile,
the
Minister
for
Information
and
Broadcasting,
Sheikh
Rashid
Ahmed,
said
that
the
change
of
Government
in
India
would
not
affect
the
on-going
peace
process.
"We
hope
any
change
in
the
Government
in
India
will
not
affect
the
peace
process
between
the
two
countries…
This
process
is
not
linked
to
personalities,
it
is
an
outcome
of
the
desire
of
the
people
of
the
two
countries
for
peace,"
said
Ahmed.
Jang,
May
14,
2004.
Pakistan
has
no
links
to
terrorist
outfits
in
Jammu
and
Kashmir,
claims
US
official:
The
Government
of
Pakistan
has
"no
connections"
with
terrorist
organisations
operating
in
the
Indian
State
of
Jammu
and
Kashmir
(J&K)
"none
today,
whatsoever",
claimed
Principal
Deputy
Assistant
Secretary
of
State
Michael
G.
Kozak
while
testifying
before
the
House
Sub
Committee
on
Human
Rights
and
Wellness.
Kozak
was
asked
by
Congressman
Crowly
if
the
Pakistani
Government
or
any
Pakistani
intelligence
agency
continued
to
have
links
with
terrorist
organisations,
based
in
Pakistan,
which
continue
to
"infiltrate"
into
J&K.
Kozak
said
there
were
only
two
such
organizations,
i.e.
Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LeT)
and
Harkat-ul-Ansar
(HuA).
He
also
claimed
Pakistan
had
"some
links"
with
these
organisations
in
the
past
but
not
anymore.
Jang,
May
13,
2004.
Al
Qaeda
video
threatens
revenge
for
fighters
killed
in
Wana:
In
a
video
posted
on
May
11,
2004,
on
an
Islamist
militant
website
showing
the
beheading
of
an
American
civilian
in
Iraq,
an
Al
Qaeda-affiliated
group
said
it
is
'ready
to
take
on
Pakistani
soldiers
on
the
borders
with
Afghanistan',
according
to
reports
in
Associated
Press.
In
the
video,
titled
'Abu
Musab
al-Zarqawi
shown
slaughtering
an
American',
a
masked
man
reads
a
statement
with
a
message
for
President
Pervez
Musharraf.
"Another
message
to
the
agent
traitor
Pervez
Musharraf,
we
tell
you
that
we
are
eager
to
meet
your
soldiers.
By
God,
we
seek
them
before
the
Americans
and
we
will
avenge
the
blood
of
our
brothers
in
Wana
and
others,"
the
masked
man
said.
Daily
Times,
May
12,
2004.
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