Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE= 7/13/01

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

NUMBER=5-49791

TITLE= INDIA / PAK / MUJAHIDEEN

DATELINE=MUZAFARABAD

BYLINE= JON TKACH

VOICED AT=

CONTENT=

///EDS: SUGGEST FOR SUNDAY USE, SEE ALSO INDIA / PAK - LINE OF CONTROL, 5-49782, WHICH WAS FOR SUGGESTED SATURDAY USE.

ALSO INDIA / PAKISTAN / SUMMIT, 5-49790, BY JIM TEEPLE AND 5-49779 FROM 7/12.

ALSO, MUSHARRAF / ANCESTRAL HOME, 5-49780 BY ANJANA PASRICHA. SUGGESTED SATURDAY USE. ///

INTRO: After years of tension and war, India and Pakistan say they will use Sunday's summit to discuss ways to resolve the long running conflict over Kashmir. But Muslim militant groups fighting for either independence or accession to Pakistan are vowing to continue their so-called holy war against India, despite the landmark summit. V-O-A's Jon Tkach (KOTCH) recently traveled to Pakistani-controlled Kashmir where many of the militants are based.

TEXT: A collection of ramshackle concrete huts clings to a hillside just outside Muzafarabad, the capital of Pakistan's portion of Kashmir.

Hundreds of refugees live within the maze of twisting pathways and crumbling buildings -- people who fled their homes on India's side of the line of control, where a Muslim insurgency has claimed thousands of lives over the last decade.

Bibi Zulaikhan made the hard journey here with her family in 1990. Her three sons have all gone back to the Indian side since then - and two have died there. They were martyred, she says.

/// ZULAIKHAN ACT, FADE UNDER TO TRANSLATION ///

They suppressed us. Then my sons came here and became mujahideen. What else could they do?

/// END ACT ///

The youngest of her three sons is here in the camp, and safe for now, helping to take care of her while she is ill. She says she hopes the summit between India and Pakistan will bring peace so that her son will not have to go and fight again.

/// ZULAIKHAN ACT, FADE UNDER TO TRANSLATION ///

We pray to Allah for freedom. And if all the countries cooperate, we pray that after they talk to each other that we will gain our freedom and soon be able to return to our homeland.

/// END ACT ///

But, she says, if India does not agree to leave Kashmir then her son will be forced to continue to fight what she calls a jihad, or holy war.

The stalemate over control of Kashmir has been the main cause of tensions between Pakistan and India. The two countries each claim the whole of Kashmir and have fought two of their three wars over the region.

India has long accused Pakistan of backing militant Muslim groups fighting in Indian-controlled Kashmir, but Pakistan says it gives them only moral support.

At a picnic spot perched four-thousand meters above Muzafarabad, a bearded man smiles as he watches children playing on a makeshift see-saw.

/// NAT SND: CHILDREN PLAYING UP TO FULL, THEN FADE TO: ///

Amir Adin is in his mid-twenties, and the beaming father of a five-month-old girl.

But he has also killed for his cause.

/// ADIN ACT IN URDU, THEN FADE TO: ///

He describes the last time he and a group of other mujahideen crossed the line of control to attack an Indian post in 1998. He says he fired a rocket at the base that killed 25 Indian soldiers.

He is unrepentant about his role in their deaths, saying he killed in the name of Allah.

/// ADIN ACT IN URDU, THEN FADE TO: ///

For more than 40 years, he says, Kashmiris have waged a political struggle for freedom from India. But now, he says, he is convinced that Jihad is the only solution. He says he is not opposed to the summit, but he does not place much hope on it either. He warns the leaders that any agreement short of what he

calls complete freedom for Kashmiris will result in more intense fighting.

But many Kashmiris say they are tired of the violence, and they are cautiously looking towards the summit with some hope.

Kashmiri resident Fasel Hussain says after so many years of war, it is about time the two countries started talking peace.

/// HUSSAIN ACT ///

He says he prays the two leaders reach an acceptable agreement soon. Only when that happens, he says, will the fear that people have in their hearts finally go way. (signed)

NEB/JON/KBK