Letters.

The Kashmir Conundrum

I think that some of NEWSWEEK's articles lack depth. "Surviving the Storm" is one such example (War On Terror, Jan. 21). Kashmir was never a part of Pakistan, and the current Pakistani-administered region of Kashmir was annexed by force from the King of Kashmir. The fact is that the king joined his kingdom with India after partition. General Musharraf's harboring of terrorist organizations in Pakistan is akin to Mullah Omar's support for Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network. If Pakistan is to claim Kashmir, it may as well ask for states with large Muslim populations such as Hyderabad and Kerala in India, Chechnya in Russia and Xinjiang in China. The problem is that Pakistan does not have democracy and seems to want to spread its misery to other parts of the world.

Rangaswamy Muniappan

Yona, Guam

Your article "Surviving The Storm" makes no reference to the more than 300,000 Kashmiri Hindus ("Pandits") forced out of their homes in the Kashmir Valley by armed Islamic separatists. They now live as refugees in other parts of India. To nip separatism in the bud, India, like Pakistan, could have trained and armed these desperate refugees to confront Islamic terrorists in the valley. But, as a secular democracy, India has had to leave the job to its security forces. In sharp contrast, China has been systematically executing Islamic separatists agitating in Xinjiang for the creation of Turkistan. Pakistan dare not oppose it.

Sharad C. Misra

Mumbai, India