India blames militants for massacre
"How long will we bear this?" Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani asked as he stood at the Qasimnagar slum on the outskirts of Jammu the site of the Saturday evening massacre.
Up to eight suspected Islamic militants had walked into the slum on the outskirts of Jammu and threw three or four grenades before opening fire with automatic weapons, witnesses told police. They escaped after trading gunfire with security forces. Two of the 30 people injured in the attack died in a hospital early yesterday bringing the death toll to 27. Another 10 remain critically injured, doctors at the Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu said.
It was the worst assault in the disputed Kashmir province since a May 14 strike by Islamic militants against a military base near Jammu that killed 34 people an attack that put India on a war footing with Pakistan.
Those killed in the latest attack included 13 women and one child, Mr Advani said.
Mr Advani taunted Islamic guerrillas, whom the federal government blamed for the attack. The rebels have fought Indian security forces since 1989, in what the rebels and Pakistan call a "freedom struggle" to separate Muslim-majority Kashmir from India or merge it with Pakistan, a Muslim nation.
"Once again, the contention has been belied that violence in Jammu and Kashmir is the result of a freedom struggle," Mr Advani said. "Women and children are not targeted in a freedom struggle."
Hours earlier, Mr Advani had been asked by the top security panel in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Cabinet to travel to the massacre site, before the government formally responds to the attack. It was expected to announce a response in Parliament today.
"It is clear that all this is being carried out with the inspiration of Pakistan. It was a gruesome attack," Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha earlier told the private Aaj Tak television channel.
Pakistan's government also denounced the attack.
"The government of Pakistan condemns the killing of a number of civilians and injuries to many others in a terrorist attack in the outskirts of Jammu," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement yesterday. "The motivation behind the attack seems to be to enhance tension in the region." US Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to visit the capitals of both countries this month for talks aimed at further easing tensions.
More than one million Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been massed along the frontier since a December 13 attack on India's Parliament, which India blamed on Pakistan-backed rebels. Pakistan denied the charge.
There were fears earlier this year that tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbours could lead to war. But India backed off after persistent international diplomacy, and Pakistan promised permanently to end the infiltration of guerrillas across its border into Indian-controlled Kashmir.
