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| India-Pakistan |
| Abdul Ghani Lone assassinated |
| 2002-05-21 |
| A leader of a Muslim separatist group in Kashmir was shot to death along with his bodyguard during a memorial rally on Tuesday. The killing occurred as India's prime minister was headed to the Himalayan province at a time of rising tensions with Pakistan. The Bad Guys are doing their best to cause Kashmir to explode, with war between India and Pakistan. When it's over, they expect to pick up the pieces... Abdul Ghani Lone, who in April had been attacked in a hospital by a Hindu nationalist, was shot dead in a cemetery at a memorial gathering commemorating the 12th anniversary of the assassination of a Kashmiri independence leader. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. A symbolic, even a sentimental gesture. The Bad Guys expect to be able to bump off somebody else, just as important, a dozen years from now, too. Lone was one of the leaders of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, a group of political and religious parties that advocate Muslim-majority Kashmir's separation from predominantly Hindu India. In December, he asked militants in the troubled state to give a positive response to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's declaration of a unilateral cease-fire. And a week later somebody tried to bump him off... On Tuesday, he was sitting on a platform in front of a crowd of 5,000 people, when three masked men approached and he was shot. One of the men rolled a grenade into the crowd, but it did not explode. Lone and two bodyguards were rushed to a hospital. Lone and one of the guards died. The other guard was being treated for injuries. Poor Lone probably guessed he would someday end up like this as a member of Kashmir's extremely narrow middle. On the one side he had the vicious killers of the jehadi groups, on the other the Hindu brownshirts of Shiv Sena. Chances are even as to which side did him in, though the masks and the grenade rolled into the crowd suggests it was the jehadis. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |