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In 1989 armed resistance to Indian rule began in the Kashmir valley. Muslim political parties complained that the 1987 elections to the state's legislative assembly were rigged against them, and they formed militant wings.
Some groups demanded independence for the state of Jammu and Kashmir and others union with Pakistan.
Pakistan gave its "moral and diplomatic" support to the movement, calling for the issue to be resolved via a UN-sponsored referendum.
But the government of India maintained that Pakistan's support of the insurgency consisted of training and supplying weapons to militant separatists and repeatedly called for Pakistan to cease "cross-border terrorism".
During the 1990s, several new militant groups emerged, most of which held radical Islamic views.
The ideological emphasis of the movement shifted from a nationalistic and secularist one to an Islamic one.
This was in part driven by the arrival in the valley of Kashmir of large numbers of Islamic "Jihadi" fighters who had fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
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