Nine killed in wave of Kashmir violence

ISLAMIC rebels set off an explosion near an army convoy yesterday, wounding 40 Indian soldiers and three civilians in the most visible attack in Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar since India and Pakistan entered a border truce in the divided province.

Nine other people were killed in shootouts elsewhere in Kashmir, taking the death toll to 185 since the two countries entered the November 26 ceasefire that raised hopes for peace in the Himalayan territory.

Rebels triggered the explosives as a bus carrying soldiers passed by on a major highway, said senior police officer Mohammed Amin.

At least 40 troops and three passersby were injured in the blast, which sent the bus crashing into a tree and could be felt two kilometres away, army sources said.

The injured soldiers were taken to Srinagar’s army hospital, where the conditions of six were serious, the sources said.

Kashmir’s largest rebel group Hizbul Mujahedin claimed responsibility for the attack.

The bus was travelling to Srinagar from the northern town of Baramulla as part of an army convoy, an army officer at the scene of the blast said.

Police said the explosives were kept near a locked shop, which was razed by the impact.

The explosion damaged another army vehicle, several civilian cars and shattered the windows of dozens of shops and houses.

Last week a woman was killed and 10 other people injured in a similar explosion on the same highway.

Both India and rebels say the border truce does not affect their operations inside Indian Kashmir.

Nonetheless, India said on Monday that violence in the province had fallen 32% in the month of the ceasefire compared with the corresponding period last year.

Elsewhere yesterday in Kashmir, an Indian soldier and six Islamic rebels were killed in the southern district of Rajouri in two gun battles, police said.

Two policemen were killed and three others injured in two ambushes by rebels in the Poonch and Udhampur districts, police said.

The nearly 15-year Kashmir separatist insurgency has claimed more than 40,000 lives, according to official figures.

Separatists put the death toll between 80,000 and 100,000.

Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is due to make his first trip to Pakistan in four years for a seven-nation South Asian summit that starts Sunday.