Monday, August 23, 2010

Kashmir Conflict - Timeline

From 1947 to 2002

August 15, 1947 - India and Pakistan gain independence from Britain.

October 27, 1947 - Kashmir becomes part of India.

January 1948 - India and Pakistan go to war over Kashmir and finally agree to withdraw all troops behind a mutually agreed ceasefire line, later known as the Line of Control.

August 5, 1965 - India and Pakistan at war again over Kashmir. The war ends when both countries decide to adopt a UN-sponsored resolution to stick to the Line of Control.

May 7, 1999 - The Indian Army patrols detect intruders on Kargil ridges in Kashmir. India fights to regain lost territory.

March 19, 2000 - Then U.S. President Bill Clinton arrives in India, beginning his six-day visit to South Asia, partly in an attempt to ease relations between Pakistan and India over the disputed region of Kashmir.

July 25, 2000 - Hizbul Mujahedeen, a pro-Pakistan Kashmiri militant group, declares a unilateral ceasefire for three months in Jammu and Kashmir.

August 3, 2000 - India begins peace talks with Hizbul Mujahedeen, in Srinagar.

August 8, 2000 - Hizbul Mujahedeen calls off its 2-week-old ceasefire and orders its forces to resume fighting against Indian troops.

November 19, 2000 - Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announces that security forces will suspend combat operations against militants in Jammu and Kashmir state during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

27 November 2000 - India puts a ceasefire into effect in Kashmir.

December 23, 2000 - Pakistan-based guerrilla group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, claims responsibility for a deadly attack on New Delhi's historic Red Fort.

February 22, 2000 - Prime Minister Vajpayee extends the unilateral ceasefire by three months.

April 27, 2001 - An executive from Kashmir's separatist All Parties Huriyat Conference (APHC), which claims to be the premier political representative of the Kashmiri people, rejects an Indian offer for a dialogue.

May 23, 2001 - India ends a six-month military ceasefire against Islamic guerillas in Kashmir while also inviting Pakistani military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, to peace talks aimed at ending five decades of hostilities between the two countries.

May 28, 2001 - India's peace negotiator for Kashmir, Krishan Chander Pant, visits the territory to meet a cross-section of people from Pakistan and Kashmir.

India refuses to yield any ground in talks and insists that the territory is an integral part of India and rejects Pakistan's calls for a referendum on the future of Kashmir.

May 28, 2001 - Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, formally accepts an Indian invitation for summit talks focused firmly on the Kashmir dispute.

June 18, 2001- Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, announces a visit to India from July 14 to 16 for the first summit talks between the neighboring states in two years.

June 20, 2001 - Musharraf dismisses President Rafiq Tarar as the nation's ceremonial head of state, dissolves the national and provisional assemblies and declares himself as new Pakistani president.

July 4, 2001 - India says it is releasing more than 400 Pakistani prisoners from its jails as a goodwill gesture 10 days ahead of the India-Pakistan summit meeting in New Delhi.

July 4, 2001 - President Musharraf issues an executive order, giving the president boundless powers through a newly devised National Security Council.

July 14-16, 2001 - President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee meet in Agra, India for a three-day summit. The talks fail to produce a joint statement on Kashmir.

July 24, 2001 - Abdul Hamid Tantray, chief spokesman of the Hizbul Mujahadeen, one of Kashmir's largest militant groups, dies in what Indian authorities call an "encounter" with police in the village of Paloo.

August 8, 2001 - India imposes an indefinite curfew in Jammu as tension runs high in the city after the massacre of 11 people at a railway station.

October 1, 2001 - Militants attack the Kashmiri assembly in Srinagar, leaving 38 people dead. Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah urges the Indian government to launch a crackdown on militant training camps across the border in Pakistan.

October 18, 2001 -- The United States says its campaign against terrorism will pursue Kashmiri militants.

December 13, 2001 - Unidentified men attack the Indian parliament in New Delhi. Fourteen people are killed, including the five assailants.

December 20, 2001 - The Indian army deploys troops on its border with Pakistan in the northern states of Kashmir and Punjab in response to a Pakistani troop build-up across the frontier.

December 25, 2001 - Pakistan detains the leader of an Islamic organization blamed by India for the suicide attack on the Indian parliament.

December 27, 2001 - Indian police verify reports that a group of al Qaeda members led by a close associate of Osama bin Laden entered Kashmir.

January 2, 2002 - India stops long-distance calls from all public telephone offices in Kashmir to prevent militants from communicating with each other.

New Delhi tells Pakistan to wipe out Pakistan-based Kashmir separatist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. Row triggers military build-up, diplomatic sanctions, and closure of transport links.

January 7, 2002 - After weeks of heated rhetoric, accusations and military posturing, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee says at the South Asian Regional Cooperation meeting in Kathmandu, Nepal, that his nation is ready for "dialogue" with its fellow nuclear power.

January 9, 2002 - A siege between Indian troops and two militants holed up in a mosque in Kashmir ends after one of the gunmen was killed and the other surrendered.

January 11, 2002 - India's army chief says the nation is ready for war with Pakistan and would use its nuclear weapons if its neighbor were to launch a nuclear strike first.

January 13, 2002 - Welcoming Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's pledge to crack down on religious extremists, India says it will judge its neighbor's actions before it begins a military de-escalation or resumes dialogue.

January 13, 2002 -- Two suspected militants were shot dead after they allegedly tried to attack a paramilitary camp in Srinigar.

January 16, 2002 - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell visits Islamabad on the first stage of a South Asian tour designed to kickstart a dialogue between India and Pakistan.

January 21, 2002 - Unidentified gunmen kill eight members of a family including several women and children in a small village in Kashmir.

February 4, 2002 - The radical Kashmiri group Jaish-e-Mohammed suspend operations in the rest of India in order to focus on Kashmir.

February 17, 2002 - Militants kill eight Hindus in Kashmir.

February 25, 2002 - India's parliament resumes for the first time since a suicide attack in December with a new strategy from the government on Kashmir designed to stamp out terrorism.

March 25, 2002 - A Kashmiri separatist leader was arrested under an anti-terrorism law in connection with the seizure of large sums of cash India says was smuggled into the region from Nepal by two activists.

May 14, 2002 - Suspected Islamic militants open fire on an army camp in Indian Kashmir, killing at least 30 people and wounding 40, marring a new effort to ease the tension between India and Pakistan.

May 17, 2002 - A blast rips through the capital of Kashmir as India's parliament debates how to respond to an earlier deadly attack in the disputed region.

May 19, 2002 - Fourteen people, including eight security personnel, were killed and 17 injured in fresh rebel attacks Kashmir.

May 20, 2002 - Three Pakistani villagers were killed after Pakistani and Indian troops traded fire across their tense border in Kashmir, a Pakistani official said.

May 21, 2002 - Gunmen open fire on a meeting of Indian Kashmir's main separatist Hurriyat alliance, killing separatist leader Abdul Gani Lone.

May 22, 2002 - A Pakistani girl was killed and three people wounded as Indian and Pakistani forces face off in Kashmir trade fire. India Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee heads for India's front lines.


Ref: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/05/24/kashmir.timeline/index.html

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