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- WORLD, Page 29World NotesINDIACrime Pays in Kashmir
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- "Our agony has ended," said a relieved Mufti Mohammad
- Sayeed, the Home Minister in India's newly elected government,
- as he was reunited last week with his daughter Rubia. The
- 22-year-old medical intern had been kidnaped five days earlier
- by Muslim extremists agitating for the secession of Jammu and
- Kashmir state.
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- The government won the woman's freedom by capitulating to
- the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, which had demanded
- freedom for five comrades detained under antiterrorism measures.
- As news of the settlement spread, supporters of the pro-Pakistan
- J.K.L.F. thronged the streets of Srinagar, the state's summer
- capital, hoisting Pakistani flags and shouting slogans. When the
- crowd turned violent, seven people were killed in skirmishes
- with police, bringing the death toll to 85 over the past 16
- months.
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- Sayeed, India's first Muslim Home Minister, has vowed to
- bring peace to his country's only predominantly Muslim state.
- Late last week the government did so by force, slapping a curfew
- on all major towns in the Kashmir valley.
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