Explosion kills two Kashmir children

Two schoolboys were killed and five other children injured today by a bomb apparently meant for an army patrol in northern Kashmir.

The victims - who were all on their way to school - were aged 10 to 11, police said. The wounded were taken to hospital, one with severe head injuries.

Soldiers sitting in a nearby jeep were unhurt by the blast in Doruswain village, 60 miles north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir.

Police suspect Islamic militants set off the bomb by remote control from a nearby hill. More than a dozen militant groups have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan since 1989.

India accuses Pakistan of training and arming the rebels, who routinely target government forces.

Pakistan denies the charge and says it only provides moral and diplomatic support to the guerrillas.

The government says more than 30,000 people have been killed in the fighting. The human rights groups put the toll at twice that number.

India and Pakistan have fought two wars over control of Kashmir since they won independence from Britain in 1947.