Kashmir landmine blast kills nine

A land mine exploded today, killing nine people and injuring 24 others in Indian-administered Kashmir while separate rebel violence left five others dead, police said.

The land mine blew up when a bus and truck carrying the passengers passed over it on a busy highway, about 75 kilometres (45 miles) south of Srinagar, a local police official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The injured were flown by helicopter to hospitals in Srinagar. Five of the dead were soldiers, two

were women and two children, said army spokesman Lt. Col. Mukhtiar Singh.

He said the death toll could rise as 15 of the injured were in a critical condition.

Elsewhere in Kashmir, a soldier and a militant were killed in a gunbattle Saturday between soldiers and rebels in Gutchi, a village 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of Srinagar, police said.

Another soldier was killed in nearby Lolab in a separate shoot-out between security forces and rebels, the official said.

In Srinagar, suspected militants lobbed three grenades at a paramilitary police post in central Srinagar. There were no casualties or damage, police said.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Friday’s attack by two militants disguised as police officers on an army barracks rose to six as two more paramilitary soldiers died in a hospital early Saturday. Nine soldiers were wounded. Both assailants were killed in the two-hour gunbattle.

The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a Pakistan-based militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is one of more than a dozen militant groups fighting Indian security forces since 1989 seeking independence for Kashmir or its merger with Muslim-dominated Pakistan.

India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring the insurgency, which has killed more than 61,000 people. Islamabad denies the charge, saying it supports the rebels’ cause but gives them no material aid.

India and Pakistan have twice gone to war over the Himalayan province divided between the two nuclear powers.