Author:
Publication: CNN News
Date: July 7, 2003
URL: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/07/07/kashmir.violence/index.html
Suspected Islamic militants opened
indiscriminate fire on a group of Hindu villagers in Jammu, killing at
least five civilians and critically wounding another, police said.
Police said three gunmen were involved
in the attack in Nowshahra in the Jammu region of Indian Kashmir, which
occurred Monday afternoon. The sources said the Indian army had gone to
the village, which lies in a district bordering Pakistani- controlled Kashmir.
Further details were not available immediately.
A police source described the attack
as a "bad incident," coming just days before the start of an annual pilgrimage
in the Jammu region.
Every year in July, thousands of
Hindu Indian pilgrims make their way to the Amarnath cave temple in Jammu
and Kashmir state. Security has been strengthened in advance of the pilgrimage.
Kashmir has been the cause of two
wars between India and Pakistan since their birth as independent countries
in 1947. Islamic Pakistan says Kashmir belongs to it; while officially
secular, but predominantly, Hindu India also claims the Himalayan province.
India has accused its neighbor of
supporting militants who launch attacks on targets in Kashmir and other
parts of India. Islamabad says it provides only moral and diplomatic support
to the Kashmiri independence movement.
India controls two-thirds of the
region, Pakistan the other third. Tens of thousands of people have been
killed since 1989, when a separatist movement against Indian rule turned
violent.
However, in recent months India
and Pakistan have appointed new ambassadors to each other's capitals and
have also laid out plans to renew transportation links after an 18-month
freeze.
-- From CNN's Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar
and Ram Ramgopal in New Delhi
