Separatists Contact Indian Officials Hopes Rise For Release Of Western Hostages In Kashmir

Kashmiri separatists holding a Spokane man and three other Western hostages broke two months of silence Thursday with three calls to government negotiators, raising hopes for a release.

The rebels said two of the hostages - Donald Hutchings of Spokane and one of the two Britons - were sick and had been given medical treatment, said a spokesman for the government of Jammu-Kashmir state, Kulbhushan Jandiyal.

No details were released, but the rebels reportedly allowed a government doctor to treat the hostages on Oct. 28.

The rebels from the little-known Al-Faran group have held the four tourists captive since July to bargain for the release of 15 jailed comrades, but India has so far refused.

The rebels last spoke to a negotiator on Sept. 18.

They repeated their demands Thursday to state police chief Mahender Nath Sabherwal during a conversation by wireless radio and in two phone calls, Jandiyal said in Srinagar, the state’s winter capital.

Kashmiri separatists have been fighting for six years for the secession of the Muslim-majority state from India, which is predominantly Hindu. About 12,000 people have been killed in the insurrection.

Al-Faran has repeatedly threatened to kill the hostages. One hostage already has been executed.

The four surviving hostages are Hutchings, 42; Britons Keith Mangan, 33, of Middlesbrough, and Paul Wells, 23, of London, and Dirk Hasert, 26, of Erfurt, Germany.

Hans Christian Ostro, 27, of Oslo, Norway, was beheaded in August. His body, with Al-Faran carved into it with a hunting knife, was found by Kashmiri villagers. An American, John Childs, of Simsbury, Conn., escaped.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicolas Burns said the government is working with Indian officials every day for Hutchings’ release.

“The United States government has not forgotten him. He’s an American citizen who’s been detained for many, many months in very harsh conditions, now exceedingly harsh conditions,” Burns said.

Wednesday in Spokane, Hutchings’ wife, Jane Schelly, urged the rebels to release the men.

“They are innocent tourists who have never done any harm to the people of Kashmir,” said Schelly, who returned home Oct. 26 after spending four months in India trying to win her husband’s release.

“It would be honorable and humanitarian to release them unharmed so … they can return to their families, where they belong.”

, DataTimes