SRINAGAR: The Indian-held Kashmir Police arrested seven leading workers of the Opposition Plebiscite Front in a midnight swoop last night [May 27]. They included the Front’s Secretary, Mr M. Sadaruddin Mujahid, and Mr Hissamuddin Bandey, convener of a committee set up to welcome Begum Abdullah.

A ban on the Begum’s entry into Kashmir was recently revoked and she is expected here next month.

Police said seven persons arrested had been on parole and had violated the parole conditions by engaging in full-scale political activity.

The Plebiscite Front demands that Kashmir should decide its own future through a plebiscite. — Agencies

[Meanwhile, as reported by our special representative in London,] in a frontpage report, “The Sunday Times” stated today [May 28] that “China may test an intercontinental ballistic missile this summer — at least two years ahead of the earliest American reckoning”.

The acquisition of intercontinental ballistic missiles by China, which is already in possession of intermediate-range missiles, would have a profound impact upon the world balance of power.

The first disclosure of China’s missile programme and its implications for the international power balance in the seventies and beyond was made in “Dawn” by this correspondent in December, 1965, upon the conclusion of a month-long tour of China.

According to correspondent David Divine of “The Sunday Times”, “Reports from Washington state that Congressional Defence Committees have been supplied with intelligence information which indicates that China has once more outstripped estimates of her scientific and technological potential”.

“The Sunday Times” report added: “The Information is presumably derived from satellite observations. The building of launch pads and missile testing towers is difficult to conceal, and satellite surveillance is known to have supplied information about China’s firing of an intermediate missile”.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2017