Nehru speech Destroyed by gunfight in Kashmir

Original footage from Kashmir's partition including film of a historic speech by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru were destroyed in a gunbattle with rebels, an official said yesterday.

The entire film, video and audio archives kept at the government information department in Indian-administered Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar was reduced to ashes when the building caught fire during a rebel attack Tuesday.

"All the important events captured on camera and audiotapes after 1947 have been lost," a senior official at the information department told AFP.

He said the department would contact state-owned radio and television to see if they had copies of the destroyed footage.

Major losses include film from October 1947 of Indian troops arriving in Kashmir to repulse incursions by Pakistan-backed tribal fighters.