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Schoolgirl Among 11 Dead in Kashmir Landmine Attacks
SRINAGAR, India, Sept 8 (News Agencies) - A schoolgirl was among 11 people killed in a string of landmine attacks Saturday in the Indian-occupied zone of disputed Kashmir, officials said.
Police said 56 children from a co-education junior school were traveling to the health resort of Pahalgam for a picnic when the blast ripped apart their bus, killing the girl and injuring 20 of her classmates.
The attack happened near the southern Kashmiri town of Matan, 65 kilometers (40 miles) outside the summer capital of Srinagar.
Three of the victims were rushed back to Srinagar and hospitalized in a critical state while the remaining were treated at a state-run hospital in the district of Anantnag, the police said.
The impact of the explosion was felt around a three-kilometer radius and left a large crater after destroying the school bus, officials said. None of Kashmir's two-dozen groups have accepted responsibility for planting the device.
In a separate incident, eight Indian army soldiers were injured when suspected Islamic soldiers ambushed an army convoy in Armpora village in northern Baramulla district, 65 kilometers north of Srinagar, police said.
The Indian army personnel were attacked with grenade-rifles and AK rifles.
Elsewhere in the state, Indian occupation personnel in two separate encounters in southern Poonch district gunned down three Kashmiri soldiers.
Suspected Kashmiri fighters killed a shopkeeper on outskirts of Srinagar. Police said he was killed due to his association with the ruling National Conference party in the state.
In another attack, six personnel of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF), including a patrol commander, died instantly when their vehicle was destroyed in a landmine explosion in the southern Kashmir district of Udhampur, officials said.
BSF official Rajinder Mani said three more troops were injured in the explosion.
Kashmir's dominant Islamic group, the Hizbul Mujahedeen, took responsibility for the attack on the BSF patrol.
Meanwhile, angry reactions poured in within hours of the attack on the school bus. Kashmir's oldest Islamic group also joined the outrage.
"We always condemn actions directed at civilians," said Javed Mir, deputy chief of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
"However, we are not sure who has done it," said the leader of the JKLF, a member of Kashmir's main alliance, the All-Party Hurriyat Conference.
Indian security officials said the landmine that blew up the schoolbus was targeted against soldiers.
"Militants have been carrying out landmine attacks on that particular road," said Rudrepal Singh, a senior paramilitary official.
"Whenever their target is accurate, they take responsibility action but when such attacks go haywire then the security forces are blamed," he argued.
The site of the explosion where the schoolgirl was killed is just five kilometers short of the town of Hangalpawa, where Islamic fighters killed six soldiers and three civilians in a landmine ambush on August 29th.
On September 4th, two school children were killed and four others injured when they ran over a landmine while playing on the banks of river Jhelum in the northern Kashmiri town of Baramulla.
State government officials here said the co-educational school had ignored official advice warning against outdoor picnics in Kashmir after the August 29th blast.
Meanwhile, another landmine exploded on the main Jammu-Srinagar highway Saturday, cutting off military supplies and civilian traffic for a few hours.
A soldier was injured as he cleared mines on the 300-kilometer (186-mile) road linking the state's winter and summer capitals.
The blast brought down a clump of an overhanging cliff and blocked the highway in the town of Dharamtal, 86 kilometers (53 miles) north of Jammu.
Some 35,000 people have died in violence linked to the conflict in the Indian zone of Kashmir, which is also claimed by Pakistan, since 1989.
Since Thursday, 10 landmine explosions on Kashmir highways have killed 11 Indian occupation security officers and three civilians. Over three-dozen others have been injured.
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