News Service from House Harris

ASIA: India puts Kashmir toll at 47,000

SRINAGAR, India, Nov 21 AFP - The nearly two-decade-old insurgency in Indian Kashmir has left 47,000 people dead, more than 20,000 of them civilians, according to official figures released on Friday.

The figure did not include those labelled as having "disappeared" in the region since the unrest began in 1989 and a prominent human rights group saidthe real toll was certainly far higher.

Kashmir Chief Secretary SS Kapur said in a statement that more than 20,000 civilians and 7,000 police and security personnel had died in what he described as "incidents of terrorism" in the past 20 years.

The same period had witnessed "the neutralisation" of 20,000 militant separatists seeking to end Indian rule in divided Kashmir.

The region's leading human rights group, the Coalition of Civil Society, said the real toll stood at more than 70,000 dead.

"Our figures are based on a proper survey," senior group official Khurram Pervez said, citing 8,000 people believed to have disappeared after their arrest by security forces.

Kashmiri separatists say nearly 100,000 people have died in the unrest.

Violence had declined since India and Pakistan, which control the divided halves of Kashmir but claim the region in full, started a peace process in January 2004.

The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.

AFP apm =0A