SRINAGAR, India, 3 October — Bloodbath continued in Kashmir yesterday as India said it was not ruling out war against Pakistan. Secessionists killed 15 people while security forces also shot dead seven militants, the day after a bloody third round of voting for the Indian-administered state’s assembly. Separatists are boycotting the elections.
Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha warned that India viewed war as a possibility to stop the alleged flow of militants from Pakistani to the Indian zones of the Himalayan province. "War is the last option after we exercise and exhaust all other diplomatic options," Sinha told reporters in Ranchi, capital of the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.
India and Pakistan, which both have nuclear weapons, have deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to their border since a December attack on Parliament in New Delhi.
India demands that Pakistan end the infiltration before easing the standoff. Pakistan says there is minimal movement over the de facto Kashmir border and considers the insurgency in Indian Kashmir an "indigenous struggle."
India says that Pakistan promised a US envoy in June to halt incursions in Kashmir. "Diplomatically, we have managed to corner Pakistan in the international arena and further steps are proposed to expose the latter for fanning cross-border terrorism in India," Sinha said.
In Kashmir, five Indian soldiers were killed and one was injured when their vehicle hit a land mine in Tral, 40 km (25 miles) south of the summer capital Srinagar. Hizbul Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for the blast.
Shortly before the land mine explosion, militants set off a time bomb on a bus near the winter capital Jammu, police said. Two people were killed and 24 injured, many suffering severe burns and about half of them losing limbs.
Secessionists also shot dead three activists from Kashmir’s ruling National Conference party in the village of Jaktial in the northern Kupwara district.
