What's going on in Kashmir, where tens of thousands have fled the worst fighting in more than a decade?
LONDON, Oct 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - This month, tens of thousands of people fled some of the worst violence in Kashmir since a 2003 ceasefire.
The disputed Himalayan region has triggered two wars between Pakistan and India and brought them to the brink of war in 2002. The area is one of the most militarised in the world.
Here's an overview of what's been happening:
Kashmir is divided into two main parts separated by what is called the Line of Control. One part is controlled by India and the other by Pakistan, but both countries want to control the whole region. About 10 million people live in the Indian-administered side and 3 million in the Pakistan-administered side. A small part lies in China.
Kashmir has triggered two wars between Pakistan and India and brought them to the verge of another in the early 2000s. Peace talks between the two nuclear powers became deadlocked after 2008 attacks on Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants, but have since been revived.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training guerrillas operating in Indian-administered Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state. Pakistan, which denies this, says it only gives moral and diplomatic support to what it calls indigenous "freedom fighters".
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and many more displaced in Indian-ruled Kashmir since resentment against New Delhi's rule erupted into open revolt in 1989.
Some in the region want full independence from India, while others would like to merge with Pakistan. The Muslim-majority state is officially known as Jammu and Kashmir.
The Jammu and Kashmir state government is viewed by many as a puppet of Delhi which fails to deliver even basic services, says International Crisis Group (ICG).
The military have sweeping powers to search, arrest and shoot, and international rights group Human Rights Watch has accused them of widespread violations including the shooting of unarmed demonstrators, civilian massacres and summary executions.
Militant groups have murdered Hindu residents, carried out bombings and assassinated government officials, civil servants and suspected informers.
But militant attacks have declined considerably in recent years and a new generation of Kashmiris use street protests, Facebook and mobile phones to spread revolt.
For several months in 2010, Indian-administered Kashmir was in a siege-like state of strikes and curfew amid the largest pro-independence demonstrations in two decades. Scores were killed, most of them in police firings. The security lockdown shut schools and offices and made food and medicine scarce during prolonged periods of curfew.
Hundreds of militants have renounced their fight because of a promise of amnesty by the Indian government, diminishing support from the Pakistani government and a sense that the fight was going nowhere. But some groups remain active.
Rights groups say around 100,000 people have been killed since the start of the insurgency - more than twice the official figure.
In a rare survey carried out on both sides of the Line of Control, the vast majority of Kashmiris said their biggest problem was unemployment, as well as government corruption, poor economic development, human rights abuses, and the conflict itself. The survey was carried out in 2009 by London-based think-tank Chatham House.
DISPLACEMENT
In October 2014, tens of thousands of people living near the Line of Control were forced to flee their homes by firing between Indian and Pakistani border troops.
Many who had been displaced by earlier periods of shelling and military build-ups along the border had been forced to live in tents for years before they returned home when the peace process began in 2003.
In 2009, 15,000 people were cut off from their land when the Indian army built a fence five kilometres from the Line of Control inside Indian-controlled territory, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) says.
The violence has affected many families' livelihoods, hitting a vibrant tourist industry in an area famous for its outstanding beauty.
In Jammu and Kashmir, most of the Hindus living in the Kashmir Valley - the region at the heart of the insurgency - have fled their homes since 1989. The IDMC says 250,000 Kashmiri Hindus, known as Pandits, were uprooted.
The majority of Pandits are living in cramped conditions in the state's winter capital Jammu, or in Delhi. They are living in camps or or rented accommodation, or with friends and relatives. The state government provides food and cash.
The government has drawn up a plan for their return to the Kashmir Valley and started building accommodation in secure zones.
HISTORY OF CONFLICT IN KASHMIR
At the end of British rule in 1947 the Indian sub-continent split into mainly Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. Kashmir was given the option of joining either. Its Hindu ruler wanted to stay independent but, faced with an invasion by Muslim tribesmen from Pakistan, Kashmir acceded to India in return for military help.
After the ensuing war, a U.N.-enforced ceasefire line left India holding the east and south and Pakistan the north and west. The United Nations adopted resolutions calling for a referendum in Kashmir, but none has ever been held.
War between the two countries over the Himalayan territory erupted again in 1965.
They agreed to the current Line of Control, based on the ceasefire line, in the Shimla peace agreement of 1972. The line, which runs through inhospitable terrain, has separated hundreds of families and even divided villages.
Tensions escalated in May 1999 when India launched an offensive, including air strikes, against Pakistan-backed infiltrators near Kargil. Over 1,000 people died in the ensuing conflict.
The nuclear rivals came close to war after gunmen attacked the Indian parliament in December 2001. New Delhi blamed Pakistan-based militants fighting in Indian Kashmir - an accusation rejected by Islamabad.
India massed hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the border. Pakistan followed suit. Around one million troops were stationed along the Line of Control at the height of the crisis.
After Kashmir was hit by a massive earthquake in 2005 Pakistan and India agreed to open several crossing points to swap aid and allow families to meet. Many people saw the move as cosmetic and say the disaster has not brought the countries significantly closer.
The quake killed around 75,000 and left more than 3 million homeless, mostly in Pakistan.
Sporadic clashes continue across the Line of Control.
WHO SAYS WHAT
New Delhi says Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India, and Pakistan is illegally occupying Kashmir.
Pakistan insists India has no legal or moral right to the territory. It says Kashmiris should still be allowed to vote in a referendum on their future, believing the majority would decide to join Pakistan.
India rules this out. It says the 1972 Shimla Agreement provided for a resolution through bilateral talks.
Many in India favour formalising the current partition, making the Line of Control the international border, but Pakistan rules this out.
Both countries reject the option of Kashmir becoming an independent state, as demanded by some separatist factions.
Indian Kashmir also has a Buddhist population in Ladakh and a Hindu population in the Jammu region, neither of which supports independence or accession to Pakistan.
PEACE MOVES
In April 2003, India's then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said he wanted to make a final push for peace in his lifetime and offered Pakistan a "hand of friendship".
The two sides agreed a ceasefire in November that year and held secret talks for more than three years beginning 2004 - during which they restored diplomatic, travel and sport links and launched a limited cross-border bus service.
They even reached an accord on the thorny Kashmir issue and had almost unveiled it in 2007 before domestic turmoil in Pakistan derailed it.
India has held secret talks with separatist groups and allowed moderate separatists from the APHC to visit Pakistan for talks.
But diplomatic progress has been slow and violence continues, albeit at a reduced level.
Talks were put on ice between July and November 2006 after bomb blasts on commuter trains in Mumbai killed more than 180 people. India blamed Pakistan-based militants.
In 2006, Pakistan said it had stopped all funding for militant operations in Kashmir.
India suspended talks after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks which were linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Dialogue resumed in 2010.
Analysts say Kashmiris should be fully included in the peace process, their needs addressed and the local governments of both sides of Kashmir be given political and administrative autonomy.
THE OPTIONS
Neither side will agree to the other ruling the whole of Kashmir or to it becoming independent.
However, Pakistan has suggested in the past that it is not really interested in the mainly Hindu Jammu region or Buddhist Ladakh, but only in the Kashmir Valley.
Some academics have proposed a solution based on joint Indian and Pakistani sovereignty of a largely autonomous Kashmir Valley, with India retaining full control of Jammu and Ladakh. India refuses to consider this.
Others have suggested the Kashmir Valley could be granted full independence. But critics say the region would not be viable without external assistance - not only is it landlocked, it is also snowbound during winter. India would in any case be unlikely to agree to the loss of territory involved.
In 2006 former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan would abandon its claim to the region if India agreed to give the territory autonomy under joint supervision by both countries.
WHO ARE THE SEPARATISTS?
Numerous groups have sprung up on both sides of the border. The emphasis has shifted over the years from a nationalistic and secularist one to an Islamic one. About a dozen groups exist at the moment but only a handful are active.
The Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which was at the forefront of the insurgency in 1989, declared a ceasefire in 1994 and is now waging a political battle for independence from both India and Pakistan. It retains strong support among Kashmiris.
Since the early 1990s the lead role in the insurgency has been taken over by Islamist militant groups, based in Pakistan or Pakistani-administered Kashmir, who want the entire territory to go to Pakistan.
The main militant groups are Hizb-ul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harakat ul-Mujahideen.
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is one of the most feared. It began operations in Indian Kashmir in 1993 and is based in Pakistan's Punjab province and Pakistani Kashmir.
It was linked to the attack on India's parliament in 2001 and to the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Its humanitarian wing, Jamaat ud-Dawa - which the U.N. Security Council defines as a terrorist organisation - provides extensive education, healthcare and disaster relief.
Fighters from some groups, angered by Pakistan's peace moves with India, forged ties with al Qaeda and have carried out terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has banned all three jihadi groups and has always denied supporting the militant groups.
Some analysts, including International Crisis Group, say the groups have been backed by the Pakistani military. Others say that, although the groups were trained by Pakistan's intelligence service to fuel insurgency in Kashmir, some have become army targets since they began attacks within Pakistan.
Within Indian Kashmir their presence and actions are increasingly resented. Many extort money from local businesses and families, says ICG.
Not all separatists are militant groups. An important player is the separatist political alliance in Indian-ruled Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). The Indian government has made some overtures to moderate factions within the APHC. (Reporting by Alex Whiting, Editing by Tim Pearce)
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