HOPES DIM FOR HOSTAGES : WIFE'S LOVE LETTERS LANGUISH IN KASHMIR.

Byline: Dilip Ganguly Associated Press 

By any gauge, it was a long shot: mailing love letters to her husband in care of his kidnappers, without even knowing where they were.

But Jane Schelly, an elementary school teacher from Spokane, Wash., was determined to do everything she could to free Donald Hutchings and three other Westerners taken hostage one year ago by Kashmiri rebels.

She addressed her letters to the militants, and gave the address simply as the remote tourist town in northern India where her husband had been kidnapped.

``It may look childlike to some,'' Schelly said in a recent interview in Srinagar. ``But when your husband is snatched away from you and kept hostage for a year, you do anything to reach him.''

As the July 4 anniversary of the kidnappings approached, her letters were gathering dust in a Pahalgam, Kashmir, post office.

All efforts to free the four men have failed. In fact, after an elaborate and costly search, basic questions in the case remain unanswered.

Despite repeated diplomatic appeals - and secret military operations by India, the United States, England and Germany - no one knows if the captives are still alive.

No one knows if the militants carried out their threat to kill the four men, as they did a fifth captive, Norwegian Hans Christian Ostro. Ostro was decapitated near the remote kidnapping site, his severed head left balanced between his thighs.

No one knows if the guerrillas, who broke off negotiations with India in November, are still in Kashmir.

And no one knows much about Al-Faran, the previously unknown group that claimed responsibility for the kidnappings and demanded freedom for jailed Muslim militants.

Dozens of Muslim rebel groups are fighting in Jammu-Kashmir, the only state with a Muslim majority in predominantly Hindu India. They want independence or union with Islamic Pakistan.

Some believe that Al-Faran is really the militant rebel group Harkat al-Ansar, which has kidnapped other foreigners before.

Others believe it is a group of mercenaries hired by Pakistan in an effort to free jailed pro-Pakistani militants.

Still others believe that Al-Faran is made up of former militants whom India freed from jail and ordered to kidnap the Westerners to blacken the image of Kashmir's separatists and of Pakistan, India's archenemy.

Harkat al-Ansar, Pakistan and India all have denied any role in the kidnappings and urged Al-Faran to free the captives.

In addition to Hutchings, 43, a neuropsychologist who specializes in therapy for people with serious brain injuries, the hostages are Paul Wells, 23, of London; Keith Mangan, 33, of Middlesborough, England; and Dirk Hasert, 26, of Erfurt, Germany.

Another American, John Childs of Simsbury, Conn., escaped three days after being kidnapped.

The last Schelly heard from her husband was in a taped message released by Al-Faran on July 17, 1995.

``Jane, I want you to know I am OK,'' he said. ``But I do not know whether I will die today or tomorrow.''

Schelly traveled to the Kashmiri rebel stronghold of Srinagar late last month. On her trip, she urged Al-Faran to have mercy and free the captives. She also met with other Kashmiri militant groups, political leaders and Indian officials.

But there was no response from Al-Faran, which released the last picture of the captives in August. All of them looked well at the time, but Dec. 4, it released a statement saying it no longer held the hostages after an Indian patrol attacked and killed four of the militants.

In June, a man who said he had belonged to Al-Faran during the kidnappings said the guerrillas had killed the hostages.

Western embassies had sniffer dogs search the area he identified, but found nothing.

``No one can tell me where my husband is,'' Schelly said.

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Photo

PHOTO Jane Schelly, wife of Donald Hutchings, kidnapped Jul y 4, 1995, speaks to reporters in New Delhi.

Associated Press