INDIA: Kashmir's law minister, Mushtaq Ahmed Lone, and his two bodyguards were assassinated yesterday at an election rally in northern India's disputed principality by suspected Muslim militants, determined to disrupt this month's polls to elect a new state assembly. Five other civilians were injured in the shooting, one of whom is in a critical state.
Security officials said a burqa-clad militant, seated in the segregated ladies enclosure at the rally, whipped out an AK 47 assault rifle from under his robe and opened fire on Lone as he rose to address the gathering at a village in Kupwara district, 50 miles northwest of Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar. The 45-year-old minister, who is a member of the incumbent National Conference party, died on the way to hospital.
Police said at least two other gunmen in the crowd also opened fire simultaneously, killing the minister's two bodyguards and injuring five others standing nearby. All three militants escaped in the confusion that followed.
Al-Arifeen, a previously unknown group, claimed responsibility for the assassination in a telephone call to a local news agency. "We will continue such attacks on all who are participating in the polls," a group spokesman told the Kashmir Press Service in Srinagar, echoing similar threats issued by several other insurgent groups fighting Kashmir's 13-year-old civil war for a Muslim homeland in which over 35,000 people have died.
Militants also killed seven security forces personnel and two children and injured 15 other people when they hurled grenades and opened fire indiscriminately in the afternoon at a crowded bus station at Surankote in the Poonch district, 160 miles northwest of the state's winter capital Jammu. An election rally was in progress nearby. Poonch and neighbouring Rajouri district are the state's worst militant-infested regions.
Lone is the second candidate to be killed in the run-up to the first of four rounds of voting early next week. The federal government wanted a high voter turnout in the polls that end on October 8th to bolster its legitimacy over the Muslim-majority state that is also claimed by Pakistan.
Security officials in Srinagar said Lone's killing would scare off voters across Kashmir where over 300 people, many of them political workers, had died in militant-related incidents after elections were announced last month. "Such violence is guaranteed to ensure a low voting percentage," an official said. Nobody wanted to be a hero and would prefer to vote with their feet than be killed, he added.