Eyewitness: Divided views from border

Kashmiris are bracing for war

By Andrew Gilligan in Mirpur

They call this small town in up-country Pakistan "Little England", and with good reason.

If India goes to war, that will unleash the fundamentalists and extremists forces in Pakistani society which we're trying to curb here

Anti-militant campaigner Saqlain Imam

Almost three-quarters of British Pakistanis originally hail from this one obscure district.

The shops are full of British goods and half the population seems to be from Bradford.

But this little enclave of Pakistani Britishness is dangerously located in the Pakistani-administered portion of Kashmir.

Amid drastically escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, it is also very close to the frontline.

Promised choices

In Mirpur, as elsewhere in Pakistan, the issue of Kashmir is deeply felt.

"I've seen quite a lot of tension...everybody is just getting ready for war," said Sajad Khan, a car dealer from Birmingham, who has been visiting during the Christmas holiday.

Mr Khan is in no doubt as to where the problem lies.

"Kashmiri people themselves have a right to live and to live in peace. They don't want no army around them - it doesn't matter if it's Indian or Pakistani," he said.

"They don't want big powers to come there and tell them what to do."

According to Islam, democracy is not a very welcoming idea

Pro-militant writer Hasim Hussain

Kashmiris, who are overwhelmingly Muslim, will remind you that they were promised a choice when independence from Britain came in 1947.

They were told that they would be able to decide which country to join - Pakistan, India or neither.

It was a choice they never got.

With two-thirds of Kashmir now in Indian hands, many Pakistanis say the militants are fighting against a brutal and oppressive occupation of Muslim soil.

But opinion is still divided.

A just cause?

I spoke to Hasim Hussain, a local writer and commentator with close links to the militants, and Saqlain Imam, a moderate who campaigns against them.

Mr Hussain believes strongly the Kashmiri militants are not terrorists, a view which he said was widespread.

Islamic militants in Pakistan

"The majority of Pakistani people think they are not because they are obviously fighting for a just cause which has been promised by the United Nations as well," he said.

Mr Imam countered that the groups had caused "great division" in Pakistani society.

"They have caused sectarianism, killings and taking hostage of the Pakistani weak civil society. The result is they are also a threat to democracy," he said.

"Pakistanis might be angry about Kashmir, but they don't want their country taken over by the Islamic extremists."

Mr Imam believes the extremists have become so powerful because military rulers have persisted in backing them, contrary to popular demand.

For the army, the militants are a convenient proxy force to pursue the fight against India, with little regard for democracy or civil society, which the generals believe only means corruption.

'More war'

For Mr Hussain, there is no conflict here with the basic tenets of religious faith.

"According to Islam, democracy is not a very welcoming idea - it is rather against basic Islamic principles of one God, one Koran," he said.

Kashmiris believe they should decide their own future

That is not the moderates' view of Islam and for the past month after its defeat in Afghanistan, Islamic militancy has been in retreat here.

Another 100 extremists were arrested on Tuesday.

But Mr Imam warned that a war between the two neighbours might backfire on India, serving to provide the boost the militants so badly need.

"If India goes to war, that will unleash the fundamentalists and extremists forces in Pakistani society which we're trying to curb here," he said.

"Secular society, when it sees a threat coming from India, its natural fallback will be on the Islamic slogans of Jihad. The result will be more crisis, more terrorism and more war."