Spokane Teacher Issues Plea To Rebels For Husband’s Release Al-Faran Threatens To Kill The Remaining Five Hostages

A plea from a Spokane school teacher for Kashmiri rebels to release her husband was answered with a renewed threat to kill him and four other captives.

Jane Schelly, an Arlington Elementary School teacher, joined relatives of other hostages in making a public appeal for their release.

“We sympathize with the sufferings of the Kashmiri people. But the hostages are only innocent tourists and are not responsible for the situation,” said Schelly, the wife of Spokane neuropsychologist Donald Hutchings.

“Please let Donald go. His family and I love him very much,” she said in an emotional appeal in Srinagar.

The rebel group Al-Faran replied with another threat to kill the five captives. Along with Hutchings, they are holding two Britons, a German and a Norwegian.

“Al-Faran has warned the government to desist from its nefarious tactics and has reiterated its warning,” said a statement delivered late Thursday to newspaper offices in Srinagar, the Kashmiri capital.

“If the demands are not met by July 15, the Indian government will be responsible for whatever action AlFaran takes,” said the note, written in Urdu, the main language of Kashmir.

Indian government officials and diplomats from the United States, Britain, Germany and Norway are trying to negotiate with the rebels. The group apparently has shown little inclination to waiver from its demand that the Indian government release 21 of its jailed comrades.

Meanwhile, friends of Schelly and Hutchings in Spokane anxiously awaited any news of the situation but declined comment. They were asked not to talk with the media by Schelly’s family, several said.

U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., said he has been in regular contact with the State Department on the hostage situation. But details were slight, he said.

“Everybody’s trying to use diplomacy and get more information,” he said. “Any hostage negotiation is a delicate balance.”

The fact that Schelly and other relatives held a press conference to plead for the hostages’ release could indicate some frustration with the negotiations, Nethercutt said.

A color photograph released Wednesday by the militants shows the five hostages sitting on the ground in front of a stone wall, their hands bound together with a long rope.

Kashmiri insurgents have kidnapped Westerners before to highlight their demands but have always released them unharmed. However, officials are more worried this time because they haven’t been able to negotiate with the little-known AlFaran, one of a dozen or so militant groups in Kashmir.

The separatists have been fighting since 1989 in Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in mostly Hindu India. The insurrection has killed about 12,000 people in nearly daily skirmishes.

In addition to Hutchings, 42, the other hostages are Keith Mangan, 33, of Middlesbrough, England, Paul Wells, 23, of London, Dirk Hasert, 26, of Erfurt, Germany, and Hans Christian Ostro, 27, of Oslo, Norway.

One American captive, John Childs, 41, of Simsbury, Conn., escaped Saturday.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo