Bus attack kills one in Kashmir

Two separate grenade attacks left one person dead and 20 others wounded in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir today, police said.

Suspected Islamic rebels hurled a grenade at a mini bus as it stopped to let passengers off in the town of Kishtwar, killing one passenger and wounding eight others, a local police officer said.

Kishtwar is about 75 miles southeast of Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s Jammu-Kashmir state.

Earlier today, 12 people were wounded when a grenade was thrown at a convoy of paramilitary force vehicles passing through Bijbehara town, 32 miles south of Srinagar.

The grenade missed its target and exploded on a busy road, police said. Ten of the wounded were civilians, while the other two were policemen.

Police blamed both explosions on separatist rebels. No rebel group claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Separately, Indian army soldiers killed four suspected rebels in a gunbattle in Surigam, a frontier village 60 miles north of Srinagar, a police statement said.

The statement did not give further details.

More than a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting Indian security forces since 1989 seeking Kashmir’s independence from India or merger with neighbouring Pakistan.

The insurgency has killed more than 63,000 people, mostly civilians.

India accuses Pakistan of funding, arming and training the militants.

Pakistan denies giving them any material aid but says it offers them political and diplomatic support.