Conflicts Taking the Road to War?

By EDWARD W. DESMOND SRINAGAR

Three well-dressed young men walked into Maulvi Muhammad Farooq's office in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, last week and politely asked to see him. When the Muslim cleric and political leader joined them, they pulled out pistols, shot him ten times and ran. One hour later, Farooq, 45, died on the operating table at a nearby hospital.

But the violence did not end there. When Farooq's death was announced, agitated crowds that had gathered outside the hospital stormed the emergency room to claim his body. They then led an emotional procession toward the . headquarters of his party, the pro-independence People's Action Committee. As the marchers tried to push their way through a police cordon, Indian security forces opened fire, killing at least 47 people and wounding some 300. In the melee, Farooq's body fell to the ground and was hit by three bullets.

The next day more than 300,000 Kashmiris attended Farooq's funeral. Security was tight everywhere, but police stayed away from the burial in Martyrs' Cemetery, where militant Muslim youths fired volleys from assault rifles in his honor. While no organization has claimed responsibility for Farooq's assassination, most of his mourners seemed to blame the Indian government. In answer to the question "Who killed Muhammad Farooq?" the crowd roared back, "Jagmohan!" referring to the hard-line governor appointed by New Delhi in January to stamp out the 22-month-old rebellion in India's sole state with a Muslim majority. On Friday the governor resigned, and will be replaced by Girish Saxena, Prime Minister V.P. Singh's security adviser on Kashmir.

"India is indulging in genocide," charged Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last week. She had just returned from a week-long tour of eight Middle Eastern countries, where she was seeking support for the Kashmiris' right to self-determination. While some Kashmiri militants favor an independent state of their own, Bhutto rejected that idea as "extremely dangerous." Kashmir's freedom, she insisted, was "the freedom to join Pakistan." In the process, she said, armed conflict with India could not be ruled out, "but we do not believe war is inevitable."

The distrust and hatred between primarily Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan have exploded into war three times, twice (in 1947 and 1965) over the fate of Kashmir. The issue is no closer to peaceful resolution today than it was when the two nations were created by the British partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Kashmiris have again shaken life into the dispute with a rebellion against Indian rule that has cost nearly 600 lives so far this year. The struggle has produced not only talk of war but also an escalation of military moves on both sides of the border.

No one, least of all the principals, doubts that a fourth Indo-Pakistani war would be devastating. Some observers even fear that such a conflict could lead to the first use of nuclear weapons since 1945. India exploded its initial nuclear device in 1974, and Pakistan is widely believed to have a nuclear weapon. The catalyst for this potential catastrophe is the rebellion in the beautiful Vale of Kashmir, an 87-mile-long valley that is home to more than half the state's 7 million people -- 65% of them Muslim. There India faces a bloody insurgency and a runaway mass movement for secession that is joined even by local police and civil servants. New Delhi accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels. Islamabad denies the charge, but the Bhutto government openly gives its political support to the rebellion.

Whatever the full extent of Islamabad's involvement, it is clear that members of rebel groups like the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front cross the border from India, sometimes under covering fire from Pakistani troops, buy weapons in Pakistan's open arms markets, seek military training with the mujahedin in Afghanistan and return to Kashmir to fight on. India, doing its best to seal off the uprising, has increased its paramilitary forces in the region from 15,000 to 145,000.

For the Indian soldiers and policemen in the streets, Srinagar is enemy territory. At every major crossing, they huddle around sandbag bunkers. They never know when a young man might dash up, whip back his cloak and blast away with an AK-47 rifle. He might kill or wound a soldier or two, forcing the military to give chase and shoot back -- and thus turn more people against the government.

Given the frequency of such incidents, it is no surprise that the troops train their rifles at every approaching car. They check the trunk and indulge in informal interrogation. "What time does your watch say?" It should not be half an hour behind; that might mean the person joined the rebels' call to adopt Pakistan standard time. "Will you have a drink with us?" One should not say no; that might be a sign of Islamic fundamentalism. If the motorist does not pass the tests, the troops might rough him up -- and break an arm or nose.

The most overpowering impression in the Vale these days is the utter alienation of Kashmiri Muslims. Anti-Indian sentiment has spread from the angry young men of the J.K.L.F. and the twelve other rebel organizations to the businessmen and bureaucrats who might be expected to support the status quo. The best recruiter for the rebels is the curfew, which the government has imposed off and on since December. In April the curfew lasted 17 days straight. It was intended to keep 1.5 million Kashmiris in place while heavily armed troops carried out house-to-house, room-to-room, closet-to-closet $ searches. Today, if a visitor happens into a place that has been combed by these troops, he draws an instant crowd and a dozen offers to see someone "beaten by the army."

The activists of the J.K.L.F. who blow up banks and government offices and kill soldiers and civil servants work for the Front's deputy commander, Sheik Hamid, who moves easily through Srinagar. If patrolling soldiers come too close, people in the neighborhood pour into the alleys to shout pro- independence slogans, giving Hamid time to escape. How long will the struggle for secession take? Hamid does not know, but he is pleased with the progress so far. "Our biggest success has been to present the problem to the world," Hamid says. That he has certainly done.

With reporting by Yusuf Jameel/Srinagar