Kashmir

Imagine being cooped up in your house for a day, or maybe even a week, unable to work, attend school, buy groceries, visit a doctor. Then imagine months of this, year after year, going back to 1990. That's the reality for residents of the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, who have been forced for decades to navigate work stoppages, curfews, militant incursions and crackdowns. Even as politicians, bureaucrats and bedecked commanders argue, seemingly endlessly, over the future of a divided region that has sparked two wars between India and Pakistan since 1947, it's the ordinary people who have suffered the most.

India said Tuesday that it would pursue peace with Pakistan but vowed to crush the violent insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir state that has gathered momentum since last week's inconclusive summit. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told Parliament that the bitter foes had achieved a "degree of understanding" during their summit July 15-16 in the Indian city of Agra, even though they could not agree on a joint statement.

Indian forces opened fire on hundreds of Muslims demonstrating against Indian rule in the divided region of Kashmir, killing one person and wounding 17 others, police and doctors said. Police used live ammunition and tear gas after the protesters chanted anti-India slogans and pelted the forces with rocks in Srinagar, the main city in the region, after Friday prayers. Nazir Ahmed, a doctor at the main hospital in Srinagar, said one man who was shot in the chest died in the hospital.

Ten people were killed and 20 wounded in separatist violence across Kashmir on Tuesday, the first day of a unilateral cease-fire declared by India in the Himalayan region. Militants blew up an Indian army vehicle, shattering the peace that had briefly descended after New Delhi implemented the unprecedented cease-fire, which is to last the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

A body exhumed from northern Kashmir is that of a missing British tourist, authorities said Wednesday. The verification could help police locate an American also missing since being abducted by Islamic militants five years ago. Police confirmed that the body they brought out of a grave in 1997 is that of one of six foreign tourists who were kidnapped while trekking in the mountains of Kashmir in 1995. "We have received a report of DNA tests of an exhumed body . . .

Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables have sparked a political battle in India, putting the ruling party on the defensive with their disclosures on alleged human rights violations and religious extremism. Most damaging to the Congress Party was a cable reporting that Rahul Gandhi, scion of India's first political family and pegged by many as the nation's next prime minister, told the U.S. ambassador last year that hard-line Hindu groups in India could be a bigger threat to the country than Pakistan-based Islamic militants.

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - Icy wind whipped Lt. Nauman Ahmed's face as he plodded up a barren expanse of snowfields and crevasses. Woozy and spent, he reached a Pakistani military outpost 20,000 feet above sea level and slumped down on a cot in one of the camp's fiberglass igloos. The next morning, the peril of waging war in the world's highest conflict zone began to take its toll. His head throbbed, and he was coughing up blood. When he tried to speak, he couldn't form words. "I thought to myself, 'What is happening to me?

Shaqeel Qalander, a furniture maker living on the Indian side of divided Kashmir, for years has been telling anyone willing to listen that India and Pakistan need to dial down their distrust, remove the cumbersome restrictions impeding trade and take other steps toward getting along. The tradesman said he wholeheartedly welcomed Thursday's meeting of the two nations' foreign secretaries in New Delhi, the first formal talks between the nuclear-armed neighbors since Pakistani-based militants attacked the Indian city of Mumbai 15 months ago. "We are very much pleased with such initiatives," Qalander said.

Guerrillas chopped off the ears, nose and tongue of a teenage girl they suspected of helping police in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. The girl was held captive for eight days before the rebels abandoned her outside the village of Manoh in India's Jammu and Kashmir state, police said. Dozens of rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan.