SRINAGAR: At least nine people including women and young children were killed in fresh outbreaks of violence in Indian Kashmir yesterday, officials said.

A grenade attack by suspected Islamic militants in the region’s main city, Srinagar, left a woman and her four children dead and 30 others wounded, police said. The victims were mainly migrant workers and their families.

“The grenade exploded while a large number of passengers were waiting at the bus stand. Five members of a family were killed and 22 others wounded, most of them Amarnath Cave Shrine returnee pilgrims,” a senior police officer said. Those killed included five of a Muslim family from Bihar, including his mother, daughter and three sons.

In a separate attack, militants executed a former rebel and three of his family members — including his wife, daughter and four-year-old nephew — in an apparent revenge killing, officials said.

Police said the murdered man, Ghulam Hussain, was a former member of the disputed region’s main militant group, the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahedeen. He had surrendered in 2004, earning himself a place on a militant hit list. He was killed in Doda district, about 170 kilometers south of Srinagar, hours after a separate grenade attack also left two policemen and a civilian wounded.

“The district administration has imposed a curfew to prevent the mobilization of a large number of people and in view of the tense situation in Jammu and several adjoining areas,” top Jammu police official K. Rajendra said.

The decision was taken “to maintain law and order,” said Qayoom Manhas, a senior police officer. Jammu is a predominantly Hindu city in India’s only Muslim-majority state.

Police said they had fired shots in the air and used tear gas to tackle fresh protests, and six policemen were reported to have been stripped and beaten by demonstrators.

The All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of separatist political parties, issued a statement condemning the grenade attack as “an attack to hit Kashmir’s economy.”

The curfew in Jammu was imposed after Hindu activists called for a major strike there to protest a recent government decision to cancel a land transfer to a Hindu shrine.

Authorities shuttered businesses and schools, kept traffic off the roads and told residents to stay indoors after the strike was called to protest a recent government decision to cancel a land transfer to a Hindu shrine.