Kashmir and Nuclear Tests

“Kashmir Border Duels, Rhetoric Heat Up” (May 27) accurately brings to focus the nuclear fuse, in expounding on the danger of nuclear warheads in South Asia: namely, 50 years of bitter conflict in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir. That bloodstained land has ignited two pre-nuclear wars between Pakistan and India, and indescribable miseries for 13 million Kashmiris.

The Kashmiri American Council urges both Pakistan and India to desist from nuclear “tit for tats” and to grant legitimate Kashmiri leadership a long-denied seat at the Pakistani-Indian negotiating table to end the Kashmiri tragic injustice. Resolving the Kashmir conflict may not denuclearize South Asia, but it would remove the most likely spark of a world-threatening nuclear volley.

GHULAM NABI FAI, Exec. Dir.

Kashmiri American Council

Washington

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Re “Punishment: Make it Swift, Severe,” by Benazir Bhutto, Commentary, May 17: A military strike will teach rogue India a lesson. Huh? India’s security policy has to account for the facts that:

* The U.S. has sold missile technology to expansionist China, making Beijing’s missile systems more deadly through multiple H-bombs on each missile.

* China has given Pakistan nuclear technology to make atom bombs and sold them intermediate-range missiles to enable them to atom-bomb most parts of India.

* China has sold American arms to Islamists in Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Hezbollah and Pakistan who terrorize and attempt to dismember Kashmir; and to Christian terrorists who try to dismember eastern India.

Bhutto seeks to punish democratic India. She has asked for a preemptive military strike to neutralize India’s nuclear capabilities, which are in heavily populated cities. This would kill Indians by the hundreds of thousands. Bhutto has advocated mass murder of Indians through The Times. We Americans of Indian origin are appalled by this yellow journalism.

JAIDEV P. RAO, President

Friends of India Society

International, Reseda