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India presses ahead

on talks with Al-Faran

SRINAGAR: India pressed ahead with talks to free four Westerners held hostage by guerrillas in Kashmir on Monday, but officials said the two sides were unable to clear the last obstacles to resolving the eight-week crisis.

They said the two sides were zeroing in on a possible agreement that would lead to the release of American Donald Hutchings, German Dirk Hasert and Britons Keith Mangan and Paul Wells, abducted in the remote Himalayan region in early July.

"Contact is on," a senior police official told reporters.

But officials said negotiations hit a snag when Indian authorities turned down a list of jailed militants the hostages' captors wanted freed, and the government demanded firm proof that the hostages were alive.

A fifth hostage, Norwegian Hans Christian Ostroe, was found beheaded in an isolated section of India's Jammu and Kashmir state on August 13, near a note from the Al-Faran militant group threatening the four others with death.

India had considered launching a rescue raid but put its plans on hold after determining the hostages could perish in a commando mission in the inhospitable mountains of Kashmir.

As negotiations with Al-Faran continued, 150 Kashmiri separatists demonstrated in Srinagar, the state's summer capital, against the decision of the government to grant a measure of autonomy to the Buddhist-dominated Ladakh region of the state.

Security forces fired teargas and warning shots in the air to disperse stone-throwing protesters.

They arrested 10 people, including four leaders of the All Party Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, Shabir Shah, Abdul Ghani Lone, Yasin Malik and Shakeel Bakshi.

One demonstrator was beaten with a rifle butt and riot truncheons before being arrested, witnesses said.

Separatists claim greater autonomy for the Himalayan plateau region of Ladakh is an effort to divide the state and fan communal tension.

Authorities have been negotiating with Al-Faran through unidentified intermediaries and have sketched the outlines of a possible agreement in which the hostages and a number of jailed separatists would be released.

Al-Faran, which was unknown before the abductions, has demanded that 15 freedom fighters, including at least three members of Pakistan-based Harkat-Ul-Ansar, be freed.-Reuter