Adventures In Correspondentland (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
Ever since the insurgency against Indian rule began in 1989, visits to Srinagar were regularly interrupted by bursts of shooting that bounced off the mountains encircling the city with a numb echo. Never before, however, had we been so close at the start of a gun battle between Islamist militants and the Indian Army. Our first, uneasy instinct was to haul from their black carry bags our sky-blue bullet-proof vests stamped with the word ‘PRESS’, which were always on hand during visits to Kashmir, the only Indian region with a Muslim majority. Next, we ran downstairs to place the source of the gunfire. It was April 2005, and days before we had flown into Srinagar to cover the opening of a historic new bus service linking Indian-administered Kashmir and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, the first time locals had been able to make legal crossings between the two since the first Kashmir war in the late-1940s. Islamic militants, who feared this goodwill gesture might serve to quell the revolt, had vowed to turn the buses heading in either direction into ‘coffins on wheels’.
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