- SRINAGAR, India (Reuters)
- The chief minister of India's Jammu and Kashmir state escaped an attempt
on his life on Saturday when two grenades were fired at a government building
he was inaugurating in the region's main city, police said.
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- In a separate attack later in the day, two children were
killed and two people injured when unidentified militants hurled a grenade
and fired on a group of Hindu devotees east of Jammu, the state's winter
capital.
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- The attack on Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah came as
Indian and Pakistani troops, locked in a tense confrontation over disputed
Kashmir, traded fresh fire across their frontier.
-
- Police said one of the rifle grenades fired at Abdullah
had failed to explode and the other had missed buildings and exploded in
the air without causing any casualties.
-
- Abdullah was opening a state education board building
in the Bemina residential area of Srinagar, the summer capital of the state
at the heart of the hostility with Pakistan.
-
- "One grenade exploded in the air, while another
fell about 600 yards (meters) away from the venue of the function. No harm
was caused," police said in a statement. In the later incident, at
Kishtwar in Doda district, 160 miles east of Jammu, a police official said
a group of devotees was climbing down a hill after attending an annual
temple festival when the militants lobbed a grenade and opened fire.
-
- "Four people were injured in the attack, two of
them seriously. They later succumbed to their injuries," the official
said. He added that the two dead were children.
-
- No group has said it attacked the pilgrims, but a man
identifying himself as a spokesman of the previously unheard of Al-Madina
Regiment telephoned the Reuters office in Srinagar and claimed responsibility
for the attack on Abdullah
-
- "Our Mujahideen (holy warriors) carried out the
grenade attack. Our Mujahideen also killed two security force personnel
in a separate attack," the man told Reuters.
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- The caller did not elaborate. Police said there had been
another militant attack on Saturday but only one soldier was killed.
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- Five other people including two militants were killed
in separate clashes between security forces and militants in the Kashmir
region, police said.
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- Abdullah, who has escaped many attempts on his life and
is guarded by elite commandos, is hated by separatist militants in India's
only Muslim-majority state for his strong pro-India stand.
-
- About a dozen Muslim militant groups are fighting New
Delhi's rule in the Himalayan state.
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- HOSTILE NEIGHBORS
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- Rebels have killed several members of Abdullah's National
Conference party in Kashmir since a rebellion against Indian rule there
erupted 12 years ago.
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- India accuses Pakistan of stoking the revolt by training
and arming fighters and sending them across a cease-fire line dividing
Indian and Pakistani Kashmir.
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- Pakistan denies the accusation saying it only offers
political support to what it describes as the legitimate campaign for self-determination
by the Kashmiri people.
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- The nuclear-armed neighbors massed nearly a million troops
along their border after India blamed Pakistan-based groups for a deadly
attack on its parliament last December.
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- The tension spiralled after a bloody militant raid on
an Indian army camp in Kashmir in May.
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- The threat of war has eased slightly in recent days following
U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to pull the rivals back from the brink but
analysts warn that another major militant attack could trigger an Indian
strike against Pakistan.
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- The two countries have fought two of their three wars
over Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947.
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