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Kashmir: Flares up again and again |
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August 14, 2000
JAMMU (AP) - In stepped up violence ahead of India's Independence Day, two landmines exploded under buses carrying paramilitary troops in Kashmir on Sunday, killing six soldiers and injuring at least 30 others, police said. Two other explosions occurred in the Kashmir Valley, the seat of an Islamic insurgency that has left 25,000 people dead in the last 11 years, but no damage was reported. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the two landmine blasts at Kud, a village 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu-Kashmir state, but police blamed separatist guerrillas. Four soldiers of the Border Security Force were killed on the spot in the blast on the Jammu-Srinagar Highway. One other soldier died later in a hospital, said a police officer in Jammu, who cannot be identified under briefing rules. Soldiers immediately halted traffic and looked for landmines along the route. Two hours later when traffic resumed, another blast went off, about 1 kilometer (1/2 mile) from the blast site. The second blast also damaged a bus and killed one soldier and wounded seven others. Police said the second blast was also caused by a landmine. Police officials in Jammu and Srinagar said both landmines apparently were triggered by a remote control device. Thirty-three soldiers hospitalized at the base hospital in Udhampur. Doctors said 10 soldiers were in critical condition. In the second blast, seven soldiers were hospitalized. The buses was part of a convoy carrying security personnel to Srinagar, 300 kilometers (185 miles) to the north, ahead of Tuesday's Independence Day celebrations that separatist guerrillas have vowed to wreck.
Militants fighting security forces in Kashmir since 1989 usually increase violence against the government during the run-up to the Aug.15 celebrations. In Srinagar, suspected militants hurled a grenade at a group of picnickers at the Nishat Gardens beside the famed Dal Lake, but no damage was caused. No one was injured, police said in Srinagar. Sixty kilometers (35 miles) north of Srinagar, a landmine exploded on the main highway in Sangrama, a village in Baramullah district, as security forces vehicles were driving by. No damage was caused by the explosion, said an officer at the police headquarters in Srinagar, who cannot be identified under briefing rules. In Srinagar, police sealed an area around the Bakshi Stadium where the Independence Day parade is held every year. Militants usually fire rockets and grenades toward the stadium to disrupt the celebrations. Police set up metal barricades on the roads to check all vehicles in the area. Passengers on buses were frisked with metal detectors. Many residents stayed indoor, fearing attacks by militants. On Thursday, militants set off two powerful bomb blasts in downtown Srinagar, killing 14 soldiers and journalists and wounding 25 others. One army major and two police officials died in the hospital Friday and Saturday. The guerrillas want Kashmir to break away from India, a dispute that has simmered for 52 years since Pakistan was carved out of British colonial India. On Saturday, suspected Islamic guerrillas lobbed a grenade near the Hazratbal Mosque in Srinagar on Saturday, wounding two Hungarian and two Kashmiri women, police said. The Hungarian women were being flown Sunday to a New Delhi hospital, a Hungarian embassy official said. The attacks increased after Kashmir's main guerrilla group, the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen called off a cease-fire two days ago, blaming India for not agreeing to talk with neighboring Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute. India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in its entirety and have fought two of their three wars over it. India controls two-thirds of Kashmir and Pakistan the rest. |
