Islamic militants are being blamed for the killing of nine Hindus and the wounding of 31 as they slept in tents along a pilgrimage trail in Indian Kashmir, in a dawn raid on Tuesday. New Delhi blamed the raid on a Pakistan-based group.
The attack, near Pahalgam, the base camp for pilgrims making a gruelling 50-km trek to a cave shrine high in the Himalayas, was the bloodiest in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir since militants killed 28 Hindu slum-dwellers last month.
The disputed Himalayan region, where Indian forces are fighting an Islamic separatist revolt, is at the root of a standoff between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, countries which were on the brink of war in June.
Defying tight security, three or four militants ran out from a dense forest and struck while the pilgrims slept. The guerrillas hurled grenades to divert attention before opening fire with automatic weapons, security officials said.
"When the firing stopped, I came out of the tent and people were lying in pools of blood everywhere," said one pilgrim, Mr Rakesh Kumar. "The firing lasted for an hour," a wounded survivor said from his hospital bed.
Security forces killed one of the attackers, whose body was found with an AK-47, rounds of ammunition and a grenade alongside, a police officer said. A search was on for the other attackers, believed to have fled into the forest.
Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister Mr Lal Krishna Advani said a group called Al Mansoor had said it was responsible for the attack but there was no immediate independent confirmation of the claim. "This organisation is the new name of \ Lashkar-e-Taiba," Mr Advani said. Lashkar was one of the groups banned in Pakistan as part of a broader crackdown on Islamic extremists.
Mr Advani said the militants had two goals - one to derail Kashmir elections announced last week and the other to disrupt the pilgrimage. But he said they would not succeed. The voting will be staggered from mid-September to early October. Pilgrims have vowed to continue their trek.
The Pakistani government and an alliance of Kashmiri separatist groups condemned the attack.
"The government of Pakistan has condemned the terrorist attack on Hindu pilgrims in Indian-occupied Kashmir, which led to many deaths and a large number of injured," a foreign ministry statement said.
But an Indian foreign ministry spokeswoman said the attack showed Pakistan continued to support Islamic rebels in Kashmir despite a pledge to stop them.
Spokeswoman Ms Nirupama Rao said there could be "no hope for peace and stability in our region or for the resumption of dialogue" as long as Islamabad did not act against militants.
Elsewhere across Kashmir, 11 people, including five Lashkar militants, were killed in separate incidents of rebel violence.
Three men suspected of attacking a church school in Pakistan earlier this week, killing six people, blew themselves up on Tuesday after being challenged by police, an official said.The body of one of the men has been recovered. - (Reuters)