India Sets Up Contact With Hostage-Holding Kashmiris

Indian authorities have established contact with a Kashmiri separatist group holding an American and four other Western hostages, opening the way for possible negotiations, a senior police source said Sunday.

The source told reporters that telephone contact had begun with the little-known Al-Faran group but that no detailed discussion had yet taken place.

Negotiations may begin today, the source said. Today is the day the kidnapers have threatened to kill their hostages. An Indian government source confirmed that contact had been established but said the talks so far had not been fruitful.

Indian officials said New Delhi was not likely to accept Al-Faran’s demand that 20 jailed militants be released in return for the hostages.

Al-Faran, holding the captives in a Himalayan hide-out, released photographs of the five hostages Sunday against a backdrop of a glacier and pine trees.

Al-Faran said Saturday that it was ready to consider appeals for the release of the hostages if human rights groups and the world community applied pressure on India to meet its demands.

But it reiterated its threat to kill the captives if its demands were not met by dusk today. An earlier deadline had been set for Saturday evening.

American Donald Hutchings, Britons Paul Wells and Keith Mangan, German Dirk Hasert and Norwegian Hans Christian Ostero were abducted in three separate incidents about 10 days ago near Pahalgam, 55 miles from Srinagar.

Muslim guerrillas have been waging a 5-year-old war in Jammu and Kashmir, mainly Hindu India’s only Muslim-majority state, against New Delhi’s rule.

India says Pakistan funds the guerrillas and supplies them with arms. Islamabad denies the charge.