India Accuses Pakistan of Abetting Muslim Kidnapers

Indian authorities, basking Tuesday in the liberation of one American and three British tourists who had been held hostage--one for more than a month--implicated enemy neighbor Pakistan in the abductions.

Muslim militants seized the Westerners in New Delhi after winning their confidence with bogus stories. They then threatened to behead them if fighters jailed for combatting Indian rule in the predominantly Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir were not freed.

Indian authorities squarely blamed Pakistanis and Afghans for the hostage-taking and announced five arrests.

“The people whose release were sought are foreign nationals,” Home Secretary Kantipuri Padmanabhaiah said. “The people who have been picked up are foreign nationals. They have spread their nets to places like Delhi and Ghaziabad and Saharanpur. It shows how the tentacles have spread.”

It was a dramatic, and probably quite deliberate, Indian answer to Pakistan’s intense diplomatic campaign to rally world support for its own position on Kashmir, which it claims is being subjected to brutal Indian repression and should by rights be Pakistani territory.

Ushered to Padmanabhaiah’s side at the news conference, the three Britons, who had been freed only about 15 hours earlier, and American Bela Josef Nuss of Walnut Creek, Calif., painted a frightening picture of their time in captivity.

They were asked if they were dealt with well.

“As well as you can be treated when you’re chained to a floor like animals,” Rhys Partridge, 27, replied.

The young Britons were kept together in a single room, although they were well fed and had access to books, cards and a chess set. They were not physically harmed, they said.

Partridge was kidnaped Sept. 29, and Paul Ridout and Miles Croston, who had just set off on a long trip, fell into the abductors’ trap Oct. 16. Police said Nuss was kidnaped Oct. 20 and held separately.

In letters Monday to the British Broadcasting Corp. and the Voice of America, the kidnapers identified themselves as a previously unknown group called Al Hadid and demanded the release of 10 people. Padmanabhaiah disclosed that the government had received a similar letter Friday demanding the release of six people, including Pakistani nationals and Afghans implicated in the Kashmiri unrest.

Whether foreigners were involved in the kidnapings is important, because India maintains that the separatist insurrection, which has led to at least 10,000 deaths in the past four years, has been kept alive only because of the involvement of Pakistan’s government and of mercenaries or volunteers from Afghanistan.

Pakistan acknowledges giving moral support to fellow Muslims fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, but it claims that the separatist struggle is spontaneous and has not been encouraged by Pakistani arms shipments or logistics support.