25 killed in Kashmir grenade attack

At least 25 Hindus were killed today after suspected Islamic guerrillas threw grenades and fired automatic weapons in a slum area - the deadliest attack in the disputed region in two months.

Most of those killed at Qasimnagar were women and children, police said.

More than 30 others were wounded, according to officials at the Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu.

The attack was the biggest since a May 14 strike by militants against a military base near Jammu that killed 34 people - mostly soldiers’ wives and children - and put India on a war footing with neighbouring Pakistan.

The Indian government did not immediately react to news of the assault. But it was almost certain to raise tensions with Pakistan, which is blamed by New Delhi for most of the terrorist activity in India. Pakistan denies involvement.

Soldiers and police scoured the lanes and huts of Qasimnagar, a slum on the outskirts of Jammu, after the gun battle ended.

But many residents told police that the attackers might have fled.

State police chief Ashok Suri said authorities suspect the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, the most feared of more than dozen Pakistan-based Islamic groups fighting to secure Kashmir’s independence from India or merger with mostly Muslim Pakistan.

No group has claimed responsibility for the incident.

Up to eight militants walked into the shanty town and set off three or four grenades before opening fire, witnesses told police.

The victims were attacked while watching a cricket match on television, he said.

The militants attack Indian forces almost daily in the mountainous province.

India says Pakistan is fighting a ‘‘proxy war’’ with New Delhi, providing arms, funds and training to the militants. Islamabad says it backs the rebels only with ideology, not weapons.

The territorial dispute over Kashmir is at the core of five decades of hostility between India and Pakistan, which have fought two wars over the territory.

More than a million Indian and Pakistani soldiers are massed along their frontier.

There were fears earlier this year that tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbours could lead to war.