1995 Kidnapping of Western Tourists in Kashmir - The Kidnappings

The Kidnappings

The six victims included two British tourists, Keith Mangan and Paul Wells; two Americans, John Childs of Simsbury, Connecticut and Donald Hutchings of Spokane, Washington; a German, Dirk Hasert; and a Norwegian, Hans Christian Ostrø. A note released by the kidnappers a day after the kidnappings said 'Accept our demands or face dire consequences. We are fighting against anti-Islamic forces. Western countries are anti-Islam, and America is the biggest enemy of Islam.' Childs managed to escape and was rescued four days later. Ostrø was beheaded by his abductors and his body was found near Pahalgam on 13 August 1995. The words Al Faran were carved onto his chest. The kidnappers demanded the release of Pakistani militant Maulana Masood Azhar who had been imprisoned by India and 20 other prisoners. Several national and international organisations issued appeals to Al-Faran to release the tourists. Representatives of the embassies of the victims' countries also visited Kashmir frequently to seek their release, without success. In December 1995, the kidnappers left a note that they were no longer holding the men hostage. Mangan, Wells, Hutchings, and Hasert have never been found and are presumed to have been killed.

In May 1996, a captured rebel told Indian investigators and F.B.I. agents that he had heard that all four hostages had been shot dead on 13 December 1995, nine days after an Indian military ambush that killed four of the original hostage-takers, including the man said to have been leading them, Abdul Hamid Turki.

The Indian authorities alleged that Al-Faran was a branch of Harkat-ul-Ansar; however the militant group denied having any such ties to Al-Faran.

Journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, authors of a book about the abduction The Meadow: Kashmir 1995 – Where the Terror Began, allege that the four Westerners were murdered by a pro-government militia group working for the Indian security forces. They claim that after Ostrø's beheading, Al-Faran was ready to strike a monetary deal to free the hostages and release them for £250,000, but the deal was deliberately sabotaged by the Indian establishment. They assert that 'there were some in the Indian establishment who did not want this never-ending bad news story of Pakistani cruelty and Kashmiri inhumanity to end, even when the perpetrators themselves were finished'. They claim that pro-government militia leader based in Anantnag, Azad Nabi (also known as Alpha, or Ghulam Nabi Mir), bought the four Western hostages from Al-Faran and held them for months prior to shooting them.