09/04/2020
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian and Pakistani troops in disputed Kashmir are engaged in their most frequent cross-border fighting of at least two years, official data shows, even as both nuclear-armed rivals battle surging coronavirus outbreaks.
Kashmir has long been a flashpoint between the neighbours but tension was renewed after New Delhi withdrew the autonomy of the Himalayan region last August and split it into federally-administered territories.
Both countries claim the region in full, but rule only parts, and often accuse each other of breaching a 2003 ceasefire pact by shelling and firing across the Line of Control (LoC), an informal border in Kashmir, and of killing dozens every year.
Indian Army data reviewed by Reuters shows 411 ceasefire violations by Pakistan’s military in March, the highest number in a single month since at least 2018. That compares with 267 violations in March last year recorded by the Indian Army.
“(The) Pakistan Army never initiates ceasefire violations along LoC, but it has always responded befittingly to Indian Army’s unprovoked firing,” said Major-General Babar Iftikhar, of the public relations wing of the Pakistan Army.
Iftikhar said Pakistan’s military had recorded 705 ceasefire violations by the Indian Army since the beginning of the year.
The Indian Army data showed 1,197 Pakistani violations during the same period.
Reuters is not in a position to independently verify the competing claims.
Four Indian army officials said the heightened border activity was a cover to help militants from Pakistan-backed groups infiltrate into Indian Kashmir, as some troops help to run health camps and hand out food in the battle on the virus.
“The increase in ceasefire violations is an indication that Pakistan is trying to push militants into the Kashmir valley,” said one of the officials, who all sought anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to media.
India has 5,734 infections, including 166 deaths, while Pakistan has reported 4,072 cases and 58 deaths, with the military of each helping its government’s efforts against the virus.
As summer approaches, infiltration into Kashmir typically picks up. An Indian security official said between 250 and 300 militants were estimated to be ready to cross over from Pakistan, citing intelligence reports.
“This is the time when our (border) fence is the weakest,” with damage caused by winter snows, said the official, who sought anonymity.
On Monday, the Indian Army said in a statement it killed five Pakistan-backed militants at the LoC during a firefight in heavy snow, with five of its special forces soldiers also killed.
Pakistan denies giving material support to militants in Kashmir but says it provides moral and diplomatic backing for the self-determination of Kashmiri people.
Source: Reuters
Posted in 2003 ceasefire, August, autonomy, battle, border, coronavirus, coronavirus crisis, cross-border fighting, disputed, engaged, federally-administered, fighting, flashpoint, Himalayan region, India, Indian, indian army, Kashmir, Kashmiri, locked, neighbours, New Delhi, outbreaks, Pakistan, Pakistan Army, Pakistani troops, People, self determination, surging, territories, Uncategorized |
Leave a Comment »
19/08/2019
SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Schools reopened in Indian Kashmir’s main city on Monday but most classrooms were empty as parents kept their children home, fearing unrest over the government’s decision two weeks ago to revoke the region’s autonomy.
Some 190 primary schools were set open in Srinagar as a sign of normalcy returning to Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir as authorities ease a clampdown aimed at preventing mass protests.
Parents said their children would stay home until cellular networks are restored and they can be in contact with them.
“How can we risk the lives of our children?” said Gulzar Ahmad, a father of two who are enrolled in a school in the city’s Batamallo district where protests have occurred.
“Troops have arrested minor children in the last two weeks and several children were injured in clashes,” he said. “Our children are safe inside their homes. If they go to school who can guarantee their safety?”
Authorities were not immediately available for comment, but have previously denied reports of mass arrests.
Protests began after the Aug. 5 decision by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to withdraw Kashmir’s special status and integrate it fully into India, with equal rights for all Indians to buy property there and compete for government jobs.
Critics said the decision will alienate many Kashmiris and add fuel to a 30-year armed revolt in the Himalayan territory that Pakistan also lays claim to.
On the weekend, residents of Srinagar – the hotbed of the separatist revolt – threw stones and clashed with police. Dozens of people were injured, two senior officials and witnesses said.
Reuters journalists visited two dozen schools in Srinagar on Monday. Some schools were lightly staffed and classrooms deserted. Gates at other schools were locked.
Only one student showed up at Presentation Convent Higher Secondary School, which has an enrolment of 1,000 pupils, and went home, said a school official.
A handful of teachers but no students turned up at the barricaded Burn Hall school in one of the city’s high security zones.
“How can students come to classes in such a volatile situation? The government is turning these little children into cannon fodder,” a teacher said, adding that schools should stay closed until the situation is normal.
CROSS BORDER FIRING
New Delhi’s decision on Kashmir has heightened tensions with its neighbour and rival nuclear power, Pakistan, and triggered cross-border exchanges of fire.
In the latest incident, two civilians were killed in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir by Indian soldiers firing across the disputed border, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said, adding that it had summoned India’s deputy commissioner in Islamabad to protest.
“The ceasefire violations by India are a threat to regional peace and security and may lead to a strategic miscalculation,” the foreign ministry said.
There was no immediate comment from India which has previously accused Pakistan of trying to whip up tensions to draw global attention.
More than 50,000 people have died in the revolt that erupted against Indian rule in Kashmir in 1989. India blames Pakistan for giving material support to the militants and helping them cross into its part of the mountainous region.
Pakistan denies the allegation and says it only gives moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people in their struggle for self determination.
Source: Reuters
Posted in Burn Hall school, ceasefire violations, deserted, diplomatic support, fear, global attention, Himalayan territory, India alert, Indian Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir, militants, Muslim-majority, neighbour, Nuclear power, Pakistan, parents, Presentation Convent Higher Secondary School, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, rival, schools, self determination, Srinagar, Uncategorized, unrest |
Leave a Comment »
24/05/2019
SRINAGAR (Reuters) – Indian forces have killed the leader of an al Qaeda affiliated militant group in Kashmir, police said on Friday, triggering protests in parts of the disputed region.
Zakir Rashid Bhat, 25, was trapped by security forces in a three-storey house in southern Kashmir late on Thursday, said a senior police officer, adding that the house was set ablaze during the operation.
“As we were clearing debris from the house, he tried to get up. Our troops fired at him and he was killed,” said the officer, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to media.
For decades, separatists have fought an armed conflict against Indian rule in Kashmir, with the majority of them wanting independence for the Himalayan region, or to join New Delhi’s arch rival Pakistan.
India has stepped up an offensive against militants in the Muslim-majority region since a suicide attack in February killed 40 Indian troopers in Kashmir and brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
Pakistan denies giving material support to militants in Kashmir but says it provides moral and diplomatic backing for the self-determination of Kashmiri people.
Protests by supporters of Bhat broke out in parts of Kashmir on Thursday and there were reports of demonstrations early on Friday, the police officer said.
Fearing more unrest, authorities said schools were closed and railway services suspended in the affected areas.
Any large scale unrest in the region would be a challenge for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he prepares for a second term after winning a general election on Thursday.
Bhat, a former commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest of the militant groups fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir, founded his own group and declared its association with al Qaeda in 2017.
Also known as Zakir Musa, he was seen as a successor to Burhan Wani, a popular Hizbul Mujahideen commander whose death in 2016 sparked clashes that left 90 civilians dead.
Source: Reuters
Posted in affiliate, Al-Qaeda, Bhat, Burhan Wani, Himalayan region, Hizbul Mujahideen, independence, India alert, Indian forces, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kashmir, Kashmiri, kill, leader, militants, New Delhi, Pakistan, Police, self determination, Uncategorized, Zakir Musa |
Leave a Comment »
29/07/2014
Police in Xinjiang shot dead dozens of knife-wielding attackers on Monday morning after they staged assaults on two towns in the westerly Xinjiang region, the official Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday, citing local police.
Describing the incident as a “premeditated terror attack,” the official Xinhua news agency said a gang armed with knives attacked a police station and government offices in Elixku, a township in Kashgar prefecture, and then some of them moved on to nearby Huangdi Township, attacking civilians and smashing vehicles as they passed.
Dozens of civilians were killed or injured in the attack before police responded by shooting dead dozens of attackers, official media reported.
Citing local police, Xinhua said dozens of civilians of both Uygur and Han ethnicities were killed or injured, while police officers at the scene shot dead dozens of members of the mob.
Over 30 cars were vandalised, some of which were set on fire, the report said.
Earlier this month, the regional capital Urumqi marked the fifth anniversary of the 2009 riot that left 197 people dead and about 17,000 others injured, mostly Han Chinese.
The turbulent region has since seen a series of violent incidents that have left many people dead or injured, including last May’s bombing of a market in Urumqi that left dozens dead and prompted a clampdown by authorities.
In the immediate wake of that bombing, which came just weeks after a blast at an Urumqi rail station left three dead, China launched one-year “anti-terror” campaign in Xinjiang in which hundreds of suspects have been arrested and large amounts of explosives and explosive devices have been seized, according to local media.
On June 17, authorities executed 13 people and sentencing three others to death for their role in terror attacks and related crimes in Xinjiang, including an attack on government facilities and police stations in the oasis city of Turpan on June 26 last year that left 24 police officers and civilians dead.
China’s heavy-handed approach has drawn concerns that many of the region’s Uygurs, including vocal critics and people linked to the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement, have been arrested and indefinitely detained without trial, while others have disappeared without trace.
Uygurs in Xinjiang and those in self-exile abroad have long complained that discrimination and restrictions on religion, such as a ban on taking children to mosques, are fuelling anger at the Han Chinese majority.
via Police shoot dead dozens of attackers during mob violence in Xinjiang | South China Morning Post.
Posted in China alert, Ethnic clash, Politics, Religious clash, self determination, terrorism |
Leave a Comment »
15/07/2014
An explosion rocked the car park of Xining’s main airport today, state media reported. One person was injured by shrapnel, according to the authorities.
Police and bomb experts rushed to the scene within minutes of the blast and cordoned off the area around the busy Caojiapu (variably spelled as Caojiabao) airport.
One cleaner was hit when the object detonated in the lot just outside the terminal, the China West Airport Group said in a press statement at 4pm.
According to Chinanews.com, the staff was hit by a piece of glass and was sent to hospital.
Airport operations were not affected, the airport authority said. Cars in the parking lot were moved to other areas to clear the scene.
The Qinghai public security bureau and armed police are now conducting further investigation.
The explosives were concealed in a rubbish bin at the corner of the car park, according to the China Youth Daily.
A person surnamed Bao working for the public security bureau of Haidong prefecture near Xining told the South China Morning Post that the bureau’s command centre were not informed of the blast as yet, but that they would be sending staff to the scene.
“Airport police, anti-terror police, SWAT and paramilitary [officers] have cordoned off the site and are doing further investigation,” Bao said.
The Caojiapu airport is the busiest airport in the Tibet Plateau region. According to the airport’s figures, it handles four million trips a day.
Earlier in June, the airport held an emergency rescue drill – the largest held in the past 10 years – involving firefighters, medical emergency response teams as well as runway and airport maintenance teams.
Clearing explosives was part of the drill.
via One injured as explosion hits Xining airport car park in Qinghai | South China Morning Post.
Posted in China alert, Dissident, Economics, Ethnic clash, ethnic minority, Instability, Insurgency, Internal politics, Politics, Religious clash, self determination, separatism, Separatist, terrorism |
Leave a Comment »
07/05/2014
Hundreds of migrant workers from distant corners of China pour daily into the Urumqi South railway station, their first waypoint on a journey carrying them to lucrative work in other parts of the far western Xinjiang region.
Like the columns of police toting rifles and metal riot spears that weave between migrants resting on their luggage, the workers are a fixture at the station, which last week was targeted by a bomb and knife attack the government has blamed on religious extremists.
“We come this far because the wages are good,” Shi Hongjiang, 26, from the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, told Reuters outside the station. “Also, the Uighur population is small. There aren’t enough of them to do the work.”
Shi’s is a common refrain from migrant workers, whose experience finding low-skilled work is very different to that of the Muslim Uighur minority.
Employment discrimination, experts say, along with a demographic shift that many Uighurs feel is diluting their culture, is fuelling resentment that spills over into violent attacks directed at Han Chinese, China’s majority ethnic group.
The apparent suicide attack on the station, which killed one bystander, was the latest violence to hit Xinjiang, despite a pledge from China’s President Xi Jinping to rain “crushing blows against violent terrorist forces”.
via In China’s Xinjiang, economic divide seen fuelling ethnic unrest | Reuters.
Posted in China alert, Dissident, Economics, Ethnic clash, Go West, Human rights, Inequalities, Instability, Insurgency, Internal politics, Migrant workers, Politics, self determination, separatism, Separatist, temporary workers, terrorism |
Leave a Comment »
07/05/2014
At least six people were wounded in a knife attack at Guangzhou Railway Station yesterday, the third assault on civilians at train stations in two months.
Witnesses said four assailants began attacking passengers at random at about 11.30am.
Watch unconfirmed video: Suspected attacker caught by police after Guangzhou train station violence
One was subdued by police and a luggage handler after being shot by an officer. But police said later on social media that only one suspect was involved.
Witnesses also said one of the injured was a middle-aged Westerner, but Guangzhou police denied any foreigner was among the victims.
The police didn’t approach [the attacker] until they shot him twice in his chest HU ZHONG, LUGGAGE HANDLER
At least four people were taken to the General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command, local police said. Three were in stable condition after surgery.
The attack comes less than a week after an explosion at a railway station in Urumqi – capital of Xinjiang , the vast western region home to ethnic minority Uygurs – left two attackers and a civilian dead and 79 wounded.
It also follows a March attack at a railway station in the southwestern city of Kunming , in which machete-wielding attackers killed 29 people and wounded 143 in what many in China dubbed the country’s “9/11”.
via Six wounded in knife rampage at Guangzhou Railway Station | South China Morning Post.
Posted in China alert, Dissident, Ethnic clash, Inequalities, Instability, Insurgency, Internal politics, Politics, public safety, security, self determination, separatism, Separatist, terrorism, unrest |
Leave a Comment »
01/12/2013
College students in China\’s restive western Xinjiang region will not graduate unless their political views are approved, a university official said, as the country wages what school administrators called an ideological war against separatism.
Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighur ethnic group, many of whom resent controls imposed by Beijing and an inflow of Han Chinese migrants. Some Uighur groups are campaigning for an independent homeland for their people.
University officials from Xinjiang said their institutions were a frontline in a \”life and death struggle\” for the people\’s hearts and a main front in the battle against separatism, the ruling Communist Party\’s official newspaper in the region, the Xinjiang Daily, reported on Tuesday.
\”Students whose political qualifications are not up to par must absolutely not graduate, even if their professional course work is excellent,\” said Xu Yuanzhi, the party secretary at Kashgar Teachers College in southern Xinjiang, which has been an epicenter for ethnic unrest.
It is unclear if such a policy has been officially implemented throughout the region.
\”Ideology is a battlefield without gun smoke,\” Xinjiang Normal University President Weili Balati said.
\”As university leaders, we have the responsibility to do more to help students and teachers properly understand and treat religion, ethnicity and culture and help them distinguish between right and wrong,\” he said.
China blamed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) for an attack on October 28, when a vehicle ploughed through bystanders on Tiananmen Square in Beijing and burst into flames, killing three people in the car and two bystanders.
Uighur exiles, rights groups and some experts have cast doubt on the official accounts of what China has deemed terror attacks and foreign reporting of the incident has discussed whether it was motivated by punitive ethnic policies.
An Islamist militant group has released a speech claiming responsibility for the incident, which China\’s Foreign Ministry said should silence those who are skeptical about the threat of terror within China\’s borders.
The Uighurs are culturally closer to ethnic groups across central Asia and Turkey than the Han Chinese who make up the vast majority of China\’s population.
via Xinjiang college says approved political views needed to graduate | Reuters.
Posted in China alert, Dissident, Ethnic clash, ethnic minority, Freedom, Human rights, Illegal practices, Inequalities, Instability, Internal politics, Politics, Religious clash, self determination |
1 Comment »
04/11/2013
If the analysis in this report is correct, then it is good news for China and Xinjiang. Alleviating poverty is difficult, but far easier than eliminating religious extremism.
“In the dirty backstreets of the Uighur old quarter of Xinjiang\’s capital Urumqi in China\’s far west, Abuduwahapu frowns when asked what he thinks is the root cause of the region\’s festering problem with violence and unrest.
\”The Han Chinese don\’t have faith, and the Uighurs do. So they don\’t really understand each other,\” he said, referring to the Muslim religion the Turkic-speaking Uighur people follow, in contrast to the official atheism of the ruling Communist Party.
But for the teenage bread delivery boy, it\’s not Islam that\’s driving people to commit acts of violence, such as last week\’s deadly car crash in Beijing\’s Tiananmen Square – blamed by the government on Uighur Islamist extremists who want independence.
\”Some people there support independence and some do not. Mostly, those who support it are unsatisfied because they are poor,\” said Abuduwahapu, who came to Urumqi two years ago from the heavily Uighur old Silk Road city of Kashgar in Xinjiang\’s southwest, near the Pakistani and Afghan border.
\”The Han are afraid of Uighers. They are afraid if we had guns, we would kill them,\” he said, standing next to piles of smoldering garbage on plots of land where buildings have been demolished.
China\’s claims that it is fighting an Islamist insurgency in energy-rich Xinjiang – a vast area of deserts, mountains and forests geographically located in central Asia – are not new.”
via In China’s Xinjiang, poverty, exclusion are greater threat than Islam | Reuters.
Posted in China alert, Dissident, Economics, Ethnic clash, Freedom, Human rights, immigration, income-wealth gap, Inequalities, Instability, Insurgency, Internal politics, Politics, self determination, separatism |
Leave a Comment »
01/05/2013
SCMP: “The director of Xinjiang‘s largest mental health institution has welcomed a new law, which went into effect on Wednesday, banning involuntary inpatient treatment for many people deemed mentally ill.
“Seventy to 80 per cent of the patients have been forcibly admitted to the hospital,” said Xu Xiangdong, director of the Fourth People’s Hospital in the regional capital Urumqi, the Yaxin online news portal reported on Monday.
“Because of this increased consideration for patients’ rights, [the figures] will change fundamentally,” he said, adding that it would put an end to frequent episodes of people being wrongfully declared mentally ill.
The new law, which has been debated for a quarter of a century, is meant to crack down on local authorities aiming to silence petitioners and troublemakers by arbitrarily declaring them mentally ill and locking them up in mental health wards.
Under the law, patients must first give their consent to being hospitalised, except in cases in which they could harm themselves or others.
If patients are still forcibly confined, they or their guardians have the right to seek a second opinion. Forced hospitalisations for reasons other than severe mental illness are banned.
Last week about 200 health practitioners from the region were sent to Xu’s hospital to be trained in the new provisions on patients’ rights stipulated by the new law, the Xinjiang Daily reported.
Two million people in Xinjiang live with mental disabilities, Xu estimated, amounting to more than 9 per cent of the population in the economic backwater of China’s remote northwest.
That compares with almost 8 per cent of China’s population diagnosed with some form of mental illness, according to the Ministry of Health in 2011. A largescale 2009 study estimated a much higher national average at 17.5 per cent.
In Xinjiang, authorities have not been able to provide adquate resources to deal with the increasing number of people living with mental disorders. Xu told the Yaxin portal in 2011 that the number of mentally ill patients had increased by 20 to 30 per cent annually over the last years.
In Monday’s report, he said less than 5 per cent of the two million mentally ill could receive treatment because of a lack of resources and trained staff.
Two years earlier, the regional government had reported plans to build 15 new mental hospitals and to expand current ones. Until now, only one additional hospital in Kashgar has been completed, the Yaxin report said.
In March, a gruesome murder of a seven-year-old Uygur boy by a Chinese man has caused tensions among ethnic communities in the Turpan prefecture east of Urumqi. The man had been declared mentally ill to prevent ethnic revenge attacks, locals told Radio Free Asia.”
via China’s new mental health law to make it harder for authorities to silence petitioners | South China Morning Post.
Posted in China alert, Dissident, Ethnic clash, Freedom, Governance, Human rights, Illegal practices, Insurgency, Internal politics, Justice, Politics, Rule of law, self determination |
Leave a Comment »
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 