India claims killing four ‘infiltrating’ militants

SRINAGAR: India said on Monday its troops killed four militants who tried to cross the Line of Control into Held Kashmir as police reported 13 people wounded in a grenade attack by suspected militants.

The grenade assault followed a weekend peace mission to India and Pakistan by US Secretary of State Colin Powell aimed at easing tensions over disputed Kashmir, the root of a seven-month military standoff between the nuclear-capable neighbours.

“Militants lobbed a grenade at a busy market in Pulwama town resulting in injuries to 13 pedestrians,” a police spokesman
told Reuters.

The grenade attack was the fifth since last Wednesday in the Muslim-majority state where an Islamic separatist revolt has raged since 1989.

Six people have died and more than 65 have been wounded in the attacks, Indian officials say.

The officials said militant activity had calmed after Pakistan said in May it would halt guerrilla infiltration into Held Kashmir from its territory, but they said violence has returned now to previous
levels.

Pakistan says incursions by rebels from its territory into Indian Kashmir have stopped.

Kahmiri militants said on Monday they had closed down training camps in Azad Kashmir on the orders of President Pervez Musharraf and the military.

“There is no more training of Kashmiri militants (in Pakistan),” a source close to the United Jihad Council, the main anti-Indian
guerrilla alliance, said.

Also on Monday, police in Kashmir said kidnappers abducted a woman and beheaded her in Baramulla district in north Kashmir.

They also said four militants and three civilians have been killed in separate shootouts in the mountainous region since Sunday evening. —AFP

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