Hindus die on pilgrimage to sacred cave

SRINAGAR - Suspected Islamic militants, hurling grenades and firing automatic weapons, killed 9 Hindu pilgrims and wounded 31 in Indian Kashmir yesterday in fresh violence ahead of state elections next month.

The raid near Pahalgam, the base camp that is the starting point for an annual pilgrimage to a cave shrine high in the Himalayas, was the biggest in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir since attackers killed 28 Hindu slum-dwellers last month.

The disputed region where a separatist revolt has raged since 1989 is at the root of a military standoff between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

The militants emerged from surrounding dense forest and struck at dawn local time, hurling grenades and firing automatic weapons at their victims who were asleep in tents.

"They came out of the forest firing as they went," a police officer said. One of the attackers was also killed, his body found with an AK-47, rounds of ammunition and a grenade beside him.

"The firing lasted about an hour," one of the victims said from his hospital bed.

Also yesterday, a defence spokesman said two militants and an Indian Army soldier died in a gunfight after guerrillas lobbed grenades at an Army bunker in Handwara town, 90km north of Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

India said last night that a new incarnation of a hardline guerrilla group based in Pakistan was behind the attack on the pilgrims.

Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani said that a group called Al Mansoor had claimed responsibility. "This organisation is the new name of Lashkar-e-Taiba."

Lashkar is one of the groups banned in Pakistan as part of a broader crackdown on Islamic extremists.

The latest bloodshed followed an announcement last week that state elections in Jammu and Kashmir were due to start in mid-September. The results will be known by mid-October.

Analysts had expected a rise in guerrilla activity in the run-up to the vote, which India sees as a way to restore peace in the region and bolster the legitimacy of its rule.

"It was anticipated. You can shout about it, hunt down the terrorists responsible for this, but beyond that you can't do anything," said political analyst Inder Malhotra.

"[Pakistan President Pervez] Musharraf is under intense pressure from the jihadis [holy warriors] that if you let this election go through, the Indians will have won the game."

New Delhi says it will not end its huge military deployment on the border with Pakistan until it is convinced its neighbour has made good on a pledge to halt the flow of guerrillas into Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan, which claims rebel incursions have stopped, seeks implementation of 1948-49 United Nations resolutions for a plebiscite to determine whether Kashmiris wish to join India or Pakistan and says the elections are no substitute.

Indian authorities have deployed a 12,000-strong security force along the 380km pilgrimage route for fear of attacks by Muslim rebels. The security is the tightest for the pilgrimage since the separatist revolt began in mainly Hindu but officially secular India's only Muslim-majority state.

Police said three or four militants were involved in the pilgrimage attack and were combing the nearby forest for them.

The attack is the most serious against the month-long Amarnath pilgrimage to the cave shrine since it began on July 19, police said. Hindus believe the cave to be the abode of Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.

Last week, two people, including a Hindu pilgrim, were killed and four devotees wounded when militants hurled a grenade along the pilgrimage route.

The pilgrimage is a frequent target of guerrilla attacks.

- REUTERS

Feature: The Kashmir conflict