Himalayan Winter Defeats Militants From Kashmir : India rebels: Frostbitten <i> moujahedeen</i> face loss of fingers, toes. At least 1,760 have been killed in fight for independence.

About 35 sullen and forlorn “anti-national elements,” as an army doctor called them, sat on hospital beds, displaying frostbitten fingers and toes.

Soldiers captured the Muslim militants in December as they crossed the snowy Himalayas from Pakistan to India.

In their villages, they are hailed as heroes and called moujahedeen, holy warriors fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India.

Many never will be able to handle rifles again because gangrene has spread dangerously and affected fingers will have to be amputated, said the doctor, Brig. B.B. Mathur.

Among the militants was Javed Ahmed Bhatt, a 22-year-old university graduate in science. Army spokesman Naim Farooqi said Bhatt crossed the frontier in September with 102 others, leaving Indian-governed Kashmir and entering the part controlled by Pakistan.

Many Kashmiris claim that the Indian government suppresses and discriminates against the people of Jammu-Kashmir, the only state in predominantly Hindu India with a Muslim majority.

Muslim militants in Jammu-Kashmir began their battle for independence a year ago. At least 1,760 people have been killed.

In Pakistani Kashmir, Bhatt said, a Pakistani army officer named Maj. Akbar trained him and the others in the use of automatic weapons, grenades and small arms against Indian security forces.

Pakistan has consistently denied India’s allegations that it trains and arms the Kashmiri militants.

Indian army officers arranged for reporters to visit the captured militants at a military hospital, then left the journalists alone with Bhatt and his comrades.

Bhatt said the Kashmiri militants tried to return to India in December with six guides. They had no special clothing or boots, he said, and were caught in a snowstorm on the sixth day.

Eleven were buried by avalanches, then Indian army sentries saw the group and opened fire, he said. When Rauf Ahmed, the 24-year-old leader, returned fire, he and two others were killed and the rest of the Kashmiris surrendered, Bhatt said.

“The Pakistanis have cheated us,” he said. “They sent us back into India despite knowing it was going to snow heavily.” Bhatt had no explanation of why his trainers would send the group over the mountains in bad weather.

Mohammad Ramzan, 35, had frostbitten feet and the bones seemed to be covered only by skin. “The doctor says the toes will have to be amputated,” said Ramzan, who was a laborer before joining the Hezbul Moujahedeen, one of the four main militant groups in Jammu-Kashmir.

“Everyone was going to Pakistan, so I went, too,” said Ramzan, who has a wife and two daughters.

More than 50 members of the group who did not suffer frostbite were being held at a military airfield in Srinagar.

Feroze Ahmed, a 21-year-old college student, said he was forced to cross into Pakistan for training, and some others also said they were recruited by force.

Ahmed said the trainers in Pakistan gave them only a few ounces of glucose and four dates each before they began the journey back to Jammu-Kashmir.

Mohammed Isihak, 15, a high school dropout, said his parents had forced him to become a carpet weaver so he joined the Muslim Jaanbaaz Force, feeling that it offered a better future.

“Every Kashmiri is going for jihad, “ or holy war, he said, “so I went, too,” said Ramzan, who has a wife and two daughters.