02 March 2004	Tuesday	10 Muharram 1425

SRINAGAR, March 1: Kashmiri freedom fighters will decide this week whether to continue peace talks with New Delhi, a senior leader said on Monday as optimism about efforts to end the 15-year-old struggle begins to fade.

Hopes for peace had risen following a first round of talks in January between Kashmiri leaders and Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani. But charges of continuing human rights violations by Indian security forces have given the fragile process a jolt and raised questions on its future.

"Given human rights violations, it has become extremely difficult to convince the people that New Delhi is sincere," said Maulana Abbas Ansari, who led the precedent-setting talks with Advani.

"We will be meeting this week to decide about the future of the talks," said Ansari, who heads the moderate wing of All Parties Hurriyat Conference.

One of the leaders who met Advani has already opted out of future talks.

Ansari said he was angry police had broken up two Muharram-related processions in Kashmir on Sunday. More than 20 people were injured and 100 arrested, he said.

Religious processions have been banned in Kashmir for security reasons since the uprising against Indian rule erupted in 1989.

Ansari said however that authorities had allowed a massive annual Hindu pilgrimage to the Himalayan cave shrine of Amarnath.

Ansari, who led a five-member team into the talks with Advani, said this week's meeting would also decide whether the moderates would meet New Delhi's envoy on Kashmir, N.N. Vohra, who is slated to visit Kashmir soon.

Advani has said he hoped talks would continue.

"I hope as decided the (second round of) talks will be held in the last week of March and the process will move forward," he told India's Zee News channel. "The security forces will have to ensure human rights are maintained while providing security to the common people."

On Sunday Indian-held Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who escaped assassination by freedom fighters last week, appealed for peace to be given a chance.

The latter replied on Monday with two grenade attacks in Srinagar.

In one attack, on a security patrol near Srinagar's main women's hospital, 16 civilians were injured, among them three women. Minutes later another grenade was tossed at a security camp and exploded without causing any damage.

Police said suspected militants also shot dead a Muslim man and his son in a village in southern Pulwama district late on Sunday. Also on Monday Indian troops shot dead a senior commander of dominant rebel group Hizbul Mujahedin in the central Kashmir district of Budgam.

In other incidents of violence, three militants and a Muslim woman were killed during two gunfights in the southern districts of Doda and Udhampur overnight and Monday, police said. -AFP