SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI, 15 May — Three heavily armed men killed 30 people and injured 48 others before being gunned down by police yesterday in violence-torn Kashmir. The attack raised tensions on both sides of the divided state. India blamed Pakistan-based Kashmiris for the attack and said retaliatory attacks on their bases in Pakistan could not be ruled out. Pakistan denied the charge and sought an impartial inquiry.
The incident happened during the visit of US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca to New Delhi. She condemned the attack. “It’s just this type of barbarism that the war on terrorism is determined to stop,” she told a business meeting.
Police said the three heavily armed men, wearing army uniforms boarded a Jammu bound Himachal Roadways bus near Vijaypur on the Jammu-Pathankote highway early in the morning. As the bus, coming from Manali in neighboring Himachal Pradesh state, reached the Kalu Chak army camp (15 km south of Jammu) one of the men sitting near the driver asked him to stop the bus. The other two then opened fire on the passengers and hurled grenades at soldiers guarding the entrance to the camp. Seven bus passengers died on the spot.
After killing the guard, they ran toward the family quarters of the officers and soldiers and started shooting indiscriminately. Most of the victims were wives and children of soldiers stationed at the base.
The militants were killed four hours after the raid began. “They had AK-47s, they were firing all around, they had hand grenades, they had explosives,” Maj. Gen. Mohan Pandey, a defense spokesman in Jammu, said. “We were asked to get off the bus and as we were getting down they started firing,” one passenger said. “Three women were killed including my wife.”
India did not lose time to blame Pakistan. “We think they are all Pakistanis,” police spokesman Subash Raina said.
Indian and Pakistani troops have been facing each other in a tense standoff on their border since an attack on the Indian Parliament on Dec. 15. “Events like this will ensure that restraint (by India) will not last,” junior Foreign Minister Omar Abdullah told reporters.
Pakistan condemned yesterday’s attack but pointed the finger at India as possibly being behind the violence. “The government of Pakistan strongly condemns the death of a number of civilians in an armed attack near Jammu in the Indian-occupied Kashmir...,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.
“Acts of violence resulting in civilian casualties in the Indian-occupied Kashmir and India continue to coincide with high-level visits to the region,” the statement added. “Such incidents warrant an impartial and comprehensive inquiry to unmask the motives of their perpetrators.”
Home (Interior) Minister Lal Krishna Advani told India’s Parliament the timing of the attack was a gesture of defiance against international efforts to stamp out terrorism. “The incident also appears to have been timed to demonstrate to the world that despite the global coalition against terrorism the terrorists are not likely to be cowed down,” he said.
An Indian Army official said a chocolate was found on one of the armed men that had been made in Zaffarwal in Pakistan and identified the men as Abu Zaffar, Abu Salaam and Abu Majid. He said wireless intercepts “indicated this is the work of the Al-Mansoorian group”.
Al-Mansoorian claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to the NAFA news agency in Srinagar. But Advani told Parliament that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and indigenous rebel group Jamiatul Mujahedeen had both claimed responsibility for the killings. A Jamiat spokesman later denied the charge in a telephone call to AFP. Al- Mansoorian is believed to be the name adopted by Lashkar after it was banned during a crackdown on militants by Pakistan in January.
