Posted on 06/27/2002 3:05:03 AM PDT by kattracks
SRINAGAR, India June 27 — Suspected Islamic militants hurled a grenade into a crowded market in the troubled Indian state of Jammu-Kashmir on Thursday, injuring at least 25 people, police said.
The attack took place in the town of Anantnag, 35 miles south of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir. Twenty civilians and five paramilitary soldiers were among the injured, a local police officer said.
Few other details were immediately available. The officer said Muslim militants were suspected to be behind the attack.
More than a dozen Muslim guerrilla groups have been fighting for Jammu-Kashmir's independence or merger with Islamic Pakistan since 1989. Jammu-Kashmir is the only Muslim-majority state in mostly Hindu India.
India accuses Pakistan of aiding, training and funding the 12-year insurgency, which has left more than 60,000 people dead. Islamabad denies the charge.
The two countries have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, two over the Kashmir region, which is divided between them.
The South Asian nuclear rivals recently came close to fighting a fourth war following a spate of terror attacks in India, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based groups. War was averted with the help of intense diplomatic efforts of the United States and Britain, but nearly a million troops still remain massed along the India-Pakistan frontier.
Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes was quoted Thursday by The Indian Express newspaper as saying hundreds of thousands of Indian troops would remain posted along the border for at least another four months.
The government plans to hold elections for the state legislature in Jammu-Kashmir in October and is concerned that militants infiltrating from Pakistan's portion of Kashmir may disrupt the vote.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
What better way to serve the god of murder, suicide, and death than to throw a granade into a crowded market place?
I guess this is what Muslims think about when they face Mecca six times a day or whatever it is that they do.
You gotta hand it to these people. They serve Allah well.
Ohhhh, wait--maybe they picked a Hindu market. Isn't what they call self-determination wonderful?
Well put.
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