Militants announce truce in quake-hit Kashmir
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-10-11 14:16

Kashmiri militants fighting Indian rule have announced a temporary, unilateral ceasefire in parts of the disputed Himalayan region affected by a devastating earthquake, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

United Jihad Council, a loose alliance of about a dozen militant groups, also called on its fighters to take part in relief activities in the region.

"We are temporarily suspending our activities in the areas hit by the earthquake," UJC spokesman Saleem Hashmi told Reuters.

Hashmi declined to say how many of the UJC's fighters had been killed or affected by Saturday's 7.6-magnitude quake.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in one of the worst earthquakes to hit South Asia, most of them in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir where the UJC is based.

Kashmir lies at the heart of the rivalry between South Asia's nuclear-armed arch-rivals. Tens of thousands have been killed in a 16-year-old Muslim insurgency in Indian-ruled Kashmir which India says is backed by Pakistan.

Pakistan denies the charge and says the revolt is indigenous.

However, relations between India and Pakistan have improved since they launched a peace process early last year.

In a further sign of improving ties, Pakistan announced on Monday it would accept quake relief assistance from India.

However, it ruled out allowing Indian troops onto its territory to join relief work in Pakistani Kashmir, which the insurgents regard as their "base camp".

A spokesman for Jamat-ud-Dawa, an Islamist charity linked to the banned Pakistani militant organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba, said that around 100 of its fighters and their families had been killed by the quake in Pakistani Kashmir.

He said another 300 activists and their families had been trapped in the region.

The spokesman, who asked not to be named, said hundreds of its members were involved in relief activities in the region.

"We have set up a field hospital in Muzaffarabad where 33 surgeons had operated on around 90 people so far."

The charity's Taiba Hospital in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, has been destroyed.

Lashkar-e-Taiba does not belong to the UJC, which comprises militants drawn from Indian Kashmir.

Pakistan outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba in January 2002, a month after its fighters were accused of taking part in an attack on India's parliament in New Delhi -- an act that brought the two nations to the brink of war.

Shortly before the ban, leaders and cadres of Lashkar-e-Taiba set up the charity organisation to avoid the crackdown.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is regarded as one of the most organised militant outfits in Pakistan, and analysts believe Islamabad has failed to crack down on it as hard as it has done on others.