31 Killed in Kashmir

05/04/2001| IslamWeb

SRINAGAR, India (Islamweb & Agencies) - Thirty-one people including Resistance men and Hindu pilgrims trekking to a shrine were killed in separate incidents in Indian Kashmir.
Resistance men exploded a bomb and then fired at police, pilgrims and porters at a camp on the route to the Amarnath mountain-cave shrine.
Six Hindu pilgrims, two policemen and four local Muslims died. Some 14 people including eight Hindu travelers were injured, according to Indian occupation authorities.
A Resistance man was killed in the exchange of fire that followed the blast, an official Indian statement said.
Last August 22 Hindu pilgrims were killed in an attack on the base camp which leads to the shrine. Nearly 80 other people were killed in Resistance attacks across the disputed Jammu and Kashmir territory on the same day. Hundreds of Indian occupation soldiers have been patrolling the 29 mile route in the Pahalagam area where the annual Hindu pilgrimage started early this month, 60 miles southeast of Srinagar, the Indian-ruled state's summer capital.
No Resistance group claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack, the latest in a rash of violence across the Himalayan state.
GUNBATTLES
Elsewhere in the state, 18 people including 14 Resistance men have died in gunbattles since Friday evening across the troubled state.
Indian security forces on Saturday shot dead three Resistance men of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group at Magam village in Budgam district, west of Srinagar. On Friday night four Resistance men were killed in another gunbattle in Poonch 300 miles southwest of Srinagar, according to Indian official reports.
Five Resistance men and a civilian were killed in a clash in Baramulla and Kupwara districts in north Kashmir.
In other districts, two Resistance ment and three civilians were killed in separate gunbattles in the troubled region.
Indian authorities said Resistance attacks, had increased in Kashmir in the first two weeks of July.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Indian policemen carry a coffin containing the body of Deputy Superintendent Parveen Kumar at Nehru Helipad in Srinagar, July 21, 2001. Kumar and eleven other people, including one policemen and three pilgrims, were killed in Indian Kashmir on Saturday when suspected separatist guerrillas attacked a route along which thousands of Hindus were trekking to a shrine. REUTERS/Fayaz Kabli