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2 Swedes Escape Kashmir Captors

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Times Wire Services

Two Swedish engineers kidnaped three months ago by Muslim separatists in Kashmir said they escaped early Saturday while their captors were sleeping and hiked 15 miles to freedom.

The two, Johan Jansson, 35, and Jan-Ole Loman, 37, turned themselves in to police in the village of Bijbehara, 25 miles south of the Kashmir capital of Srinagar.

Jansson and Loman were kidnaped March 31 by the Muslim Martyrs Force, one of several guerrilla groups fighting for secession of the Muslim-dominated Kashmir region from predominantly Hindu India.

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The two engineers were working on a hydroelectric project near Srinagar, 400 miles north of New Delhi.

The kidnapers wanted Amnesty International and the United Nations to send human rights investigators to the Kashmir Valley to probe allegations of rape, murder and torture by security forces fighting the insurgency.

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