Top militant commander arrested in India

A top militant commander blamed for 25 attacks and tourist killings has been arrested in India’s portion of Kashmir, in a major setback for the separatist rebels, police said today.

Mudassir, believed to be the chief planner of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group, was arrested in Jammu-Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state, according to the state’s director-general of police, Gopal Sharma.

Sharma did not say when the arrest was made.

Police believe Mudassir, who goes by a single name, planned a series of grenade attacks on July 11 in Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, that left nine tourists dead, Sharma said.

“(The arrest) is a great setback to the militants,” Sharma said.

More than a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting Indian security forces since 1989, demanding Kashmir’s independence or its merger with neighbouring Pakistan. More than 68,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in the conflict.