From: imran@panix.com (Imran Anwar)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: PakistaNews Text File #0108
Date: 9 Jan 93 22:34:41 GMT
Organization: IMRAN: Information & Media Resources, Affiliations, Networks


Federal ministers study cause of death and destruction in Kashmir town
 UPI reported:
   SOPORE, India  -- Three federal ministers toured this Muslim guerrilla 
stronghold in the Himalayan foothills Saturday for a first- hand look at the 
devastation triggered by a series of blasts and fires for which security forces 
and rebels blamed each other.
   Kashmiri Muslim leaders said the tragedy occurred because of indiscriminate 
shootings and vandalism by troops of the paramilitary Border Security Force.
   State authorities said a guerrilla explosives dump was hit during a 
gunbattle between the troops and rebels, triggering a series of uncontrollable 
blasts and fires that swept through the densely-populated neighborhood of 
Sopore.
   The militants called the incident an act of "genocide" by the paramilitary 
force. Officials said a number of civilians perished because the insurgents, 
"using ordinary people as human shields," operated from a crowded residential 
district.
   Guerrilla groups claimed as many as 90 people perished in the tragedy. 
Authorities acknowledged recovering only 39 bodies from the scene and said two 
paramilitary policemen and two civilians succumbed to their wounds in hospital.
   Hospitals in Sopore and nearby Srinagar, Kashmir's capital, listed 25 other 
wounded patients.
  The communal situation in Kashmir has grown highly polarized and Sopore 
residents, like citizens in other Muslim towns, openly side with the rebels 
against the predominantly Hindu security forces.
   On Saturday, the leader of the outlawed Jamait-i-Islami fundamentalist 
organization called for a Muslim protest rebellion in the Kashmir bureaucracy. 
Sayed Ali Shah Geelani, who was jailed for two years until 1992 for what the 
state called "subversive activities," urged Muslim officials to quit the 
administration.
   "No Muslim can tolerate what has happened in Sopore," he told reporters.


PAKISTAN DENIES U.S. FEARS IT A TERRORIST STATE
Pakistan said on Saturday it was confident the United States would not add it 
to a list of states sponsoring terrorism and dismissed reports it was arming 
Indian anti-government groups.
    "We are not on the list and we feel quite sure the new administration will 
confirm this fact," secretary for foreign affairs Shaharyar Khan said in an 
interview.
    Washington notified Islamabad on Thursday that it was keeping Pakistan 
under review as a country that could be added to the list of states sponsoring 
terrorism.
    The U.S. State Department said the incoming Clinton administration would 
review within four to six months reports that Pakistan was supporting Kashmiri 
and Sikh militants "who commit terrorist acts in India."
    Pakistan, conduit to Afghan mujahideen rebels, was a key U.S. strategic 
partner and recipient of U.S. aid until Soviet troops pulled out of 
neighbouring Afghanistan in 1989 after a 10-year occupation. U.S.and Soviet aid 
to respective Afghan warring factions was ended in January 1992.

[COMMENT: That was OK because we were fighting on behalf of the USA, that was 
too cowardly to go to war with the USSR.  But even moral support for Kashmir is 
Rsupport of terrorismS in the State Departments book - Imran Anwar]


THOUSANDS MOURN PAKISTANI ARMY CHIEF
- A crowd of thousands gathered on a racecourse in Rawalpindi on Saturday to 
mourn Pakistani Army Chief of Staff General Asif Nawaz, who died of a heart 
attack on Friday.
    President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, cabinet ministers 
and the military top brass were chief mourners at funeral prayers for the 
tough-talking general who died after just 20 months in Pakistan's most powerful 
job.


Sectarian violence spreads in western India, 66 killed
Hindu-Muslim fighting has spread to new areas of Bombay and the nearby state of 
Gujarat, raising the four-day death toll to at least 66, authorities said.
   Hundreds of people were reported wounded in the latest resurgence of bloody 
sectarian violence in Bombay, India's business capital, and Gujarat.
   The spreading violence in Bombay prompted authorities late Friday to 
implement curfews in several new districts and call for urgent Army and police 
reinforcements.
   At least 11 people were burned to death and 19 others fatally knifed or shot 
in Bombay Friday despite deployment of Army troops.