SRINAGAR, 27 July 2004 — Suspected militants killed eight people, three by beheading, and injured 30 others, while Indian troops gunned down five people in Indian Kashmir, police said yesterday.
One of the civilian deaths was caused when suspected militants tossed a grenade at paramilitary troops near the main hospital in Baramulla town, 55 kilometers north of the summer capital Srinagar, police said.
“The grenade exploded among the paramilitary men and civilian patients and attendants,” a police spokesman said, adding that 30 people were injured in the blast.
“The hospital was abuzz with activity when the explosion took place,” the spokesman said, adding two of the injured were with India’s Border Security Force.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast. The region’s dominant group Hizbul Mujahedeen this month criticized attacks by militants in crowded places and urged other groups to refrain from such actions.
Meanwhile, armed militants barged into the house of a man named Mohammed Shafi in southern Rajouri district and beheaded him, police said. His son and daughter were also beheaded minutes after his killing. Police believe the three were killed on suspicion of working for Indian troops.
In the Marood area of Rajouri district, Indian troops shot dead three people during a fierce gunfight overnight, police said, adding two security force personnel were injured in the fighting.
In southern Doda district gunmen shot dead a woman overnight after accusing her of being a police informer, police said, adding two militants died in inter-group rivalry in the same district.
Police said an ice-cream seller was killed by suspected militants who slit his throat in southern Pulwama district. In further violence, Indian troops shot dead two people in northern Baramulla and Kupwara districts overnight, one of them along the de facto border between India and Pakistan. Thousands of people have died in Kashmir since the eruption of anti-Indian uprising in the region 15 years ago.
