Associated Press

Srinagar, July 22:

Ultras threatened today to kill Hindus if they return to the Kashmir Valley after escaping the start of a bloody insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir nearly 15 years ago. The threat came within days of a meeting between Kashmiri Muslim separatists and Hindu leaders in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state, to discuss the resettlement of tens of thousands of Hindus. “There is a complete ban on the return of Pandits (Hindus),” said a joint statement from four Kashmiri Muslim rebel groups. “They will be allowed to return only if they accept India’s rule over Kashmir as illegitimate and tyrannical, and participate in the freedom struggle

with full fervour. (If) they do not accept these conditions, we will have the right to avenge blood with blood.” On Tuesday, nearly 40 Kashmiri Hindu leaders met representatives of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella group of Kashmiri separatists, to explore the possibility of a safe return to the Kashmir Valley. It isn’t known how many Kashmiri Hindus are seeking to return to the valley, but more than 250,000 locked their homes and fled soon after the separatist insurgency erupted in December 1989. Fewer than 25,000 remain in the predominantly Muslim area, while thousands live in squalid conditions in makeshift camps and ghettos in several Indian cities. Nearly 2,000 Kashmiri Hindus have been killed in the insurgency, according to Panun Kashmir, an organisation that demands a separate state within India for Kashmiri Hindus.