Violence leaves 26 dead after more Hindus massacred in Kashmir
Monday December 3, 5:31 AM
Seven Hindus en route to a wedding were massacred by Islamic guerrillas in the southern mountains of Kashmir, adding to 19 deaths in overnight violence, police said.
The unarmed Hindu civilians were on their way to a wedding in Udhampur district, 150 kilometers (94 miles) north of the Kashmir winter capital Jammu, when they were ambushed in a dense forest and shot at point blank range, police said.
Officials said they were awaiting further details of the attack, the second since Friday against Hindus in the same remote region.
"We are trying to confirm the report of the massacre and a police official has been sent for details," Udhampur administrator Shailendra Kumar told AFP by telephone.
He said army and paramilitary troops had been rushed to the site in Udhampur's Gaylot region, where on Friday night five Hindus and two Muslim civilians were gunned down by Muslim separatist guerrillas in police uniform.
In New Delhi, a defence ministry source told AFP that a "pro-active" plan was being put in place to quell Islamic raiders in Udhampur, home to thousands of Hindus.
Elsewhere in Muslim-majority Kashmir, 16 separatists, two female civilians and an Indian army major were killed and 21 houses and a school were razed in unabated gunbattles between Indian soldiers and the Islamic guerrillas.
The clashes occurred during search operations by the army in the northern Kashmir district of Kupwara, which borders Pakistan-administered Kashmir, witnesses said.
The police spokesman in Srinagar said six militants, all local Kashmiris affiliated with the leading militant group Hizbul Mujahedeen, were gunned down during a three-hour encounter at the village of Magam.
Senior police and others in Kupwara district rushed to Magam to check the damage and work out a relief package for the affected civilians.
Two more separatist militants were shot dead in an adjoining village overnight, police said in Srinagar city, Kashmir's summer capital.
At Hari Buddha in the southern Poonch district, soldiers shot dead two militants in a gunbattle overnight, the spokesman said.
An infantry major was also killed and two combat soldiers injured in the firefight.
Police added that militants killed two Muslim women in the Kandi village of Kupwara early Sunday. In the same village a Hizbul guerrilla was beheaded by unidentified attackers.
Internecine fighting between guerrilla groups in Kashmir is common.
Five more unidentified militants died elsewhere in Kashmir, three of them in the southern district of Anantnag.
Indian troops have increased cordon-and-search operations in infiltration prone Kupwara over the past week, as officials fear an increase in the number of militants crossing over from Pakistani territory because of the onset of winter.
India has also warned the Taliban militia on the run in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar district could cross into Kashmir via Pakistan and push up bloodletting in the Himalayan territory also claimed by Islamabad.
sg.news.yahoo.com |
