Guerrillas Hold Talks With India Over Kashmir

Islamic militants who want Kashmir to break free of India donned masks and huddled with Indian officials Thursday--the first peace talks in an 11-year insurgency that has claimed 25,000 lives in the Himalayan state.

Afterward, Indian Home Secretary Kamal Pande said the 105-minute meeting with the Hizbul Moujahedeen guerrillas was “a very positive dialogue. Very cordial.” He said the two sides set up a committee to hash out details of a cease-fire the guerrillas declared July 24.

Masood, a Hizbul Moujahedeen commander who uses only one name and who spoke through a handkerchief covering his face, said his group is serious about keeping the peace.

“We will ask our six commanders to implement the cease-fire on the ground effectively,” he said. “We express our gratitude to the government of India for extending an unconditional dialogue.”

Masood said his group wants Pakistan to be included in the talks “at a later stage.”

A day earlier, Pakistan’s military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, repeated his offer to open talks with India on the Kashmir dispute.

But Pande countered that the talks were focusing only on the cease-fire, not on long-term resolution of the Indo-Pakistani conflict. And Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee refused to deal with Pakistan, which he accuses of encouraging violence in the province.

The unprecedented talks with the Hizbul Moujahedeen, the fiercest of the dozen guerrilla groups fighting India in the province, were a breakthrough in the long, bloody rebellion in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. But they were far from a death knell for the unrest, as the events of the previous days made clear.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, gunmen massacred a group of Hindu pilgrims and attacked villages around Kashmir, leaving 102 people dead. Indian authorities blamed the other Pakistani-based guerrilla groups in the state. Many of the groups fiercely oppose negotiations and the cease-fire, and India said they launched the attacks as reprisals for the peace moves.

The worst of the massacres came near the town of Pahalgam, 55 miles south of Srinagar, the summer capital of the Muslim-majority state. Guerrillas opened fire on Hindu pilgrims and Muslim porters on their way to a religious shrine. Indian security forces fired back, and 20 minutes of fighting left 35 people dead and dozens more badly hurt.