SRINAGAR, 18 February — Fourteen people have been killed in fresh separatist violence in Jammu and Kashmir, including eight Hindus in one remote village, police said yesterday. The scenic mountainous region is at the heart of a military standoff between India and Pakistan.
Police said suspected activists on Saturday night shot dead eight people and wounded six others during an attack on a remote village in the state.
“During the intervening night, militants shot dead eight people, all Hindus in two adjacent houses at Narala village,” a police official said. He said the dead came from two families in the village, which lies in the state’s Rajouri district.
Initial investigations showed that Pakistan-based Kashmiri group Lashkar-e-Taiba could be behind the attack, Jammu police Inspector General P.L. Gupta said.
But the activists alleged the incident was carried out by India.“We have said time and again that civilians belonging to any race or religion are not our target,” a spokesman for the Muttahidda (United) Jihad Council, an alliance of militant groups based in Pakistani Kashmir, said, condemning the attack.
“We condemn this attack and firmly believe that Indian security forces are behind this incident which is aimed at defaming our legitimate freedom struggle,” a spokesman for the 15-party group said.
Jaish-e-Muhammad, a militant group banned by Pakistan last month after India accused it of involvement in the Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament, also distanced itself from the attack. “We never target civilians in our operations and our targets have always been the Indian forces,” Jaish spokesman Munib Ahmad Khan said.
The police official said the wounded had been taken to hospital and that no militant group had claimed responsibility for the killings. “Security personnel have rushed to the village,” he added. Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, had strongly condemned the “brutal attack” on Kashmiri Hindus, a government spokesman said in Srinagar.
In another incident a soldier and two activists were killed in a fierce gunbattle at Thanamandi area of Rajouri district, police said. Four soldiers were also wounded in the gunbattle.
