Militants vote with bombs as Kashmir violence increases

Militants bombed a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims in Indian Kashmir yesterday, a day after the bloodiest phase of a poll India hopes will endorse its rule in the disputed state.

Two people were killed and at least 20 others wounded in the bus attack, many suffering serious burns, and in a separate incident three National Conference Party workers were murdered in Kupwara district bordering Pakistan, police said.

Barely an hour after the dawn bus attack, five paramilitary troops were killed when their vehicle ran over a landmine near the summer capital, Srinagar.

The bus blast came a day after rebels shot dead eight civilians in another raid on a bus in southern Kashmir, the state at the centre of a tense stand-off between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan and the trigger of two of their three wars.

India regards the level of election violence as a key test of Pakistan's pledge to stop separatists slipping across the border to fight New Delhi's rule.

About 600 people, including a state minister and more than 30 political workers, have been killed since the election was called on August 2.

The bus attacked yesterday was carrying pilgrims to a Hindu cave shrine about 60km from Jammu, the winter capital of India's only Muslim-majority state.

"There was a big bang," said passenger and shrine worker Sheru. "The bus cracked open and we were thrown out and then the bus caught fire. Then I fainted."

A few hours after the explosion, the twisted, smouldering wreckage of the bus still lay on the road, luggage scattered all around.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the shadowy Al-Arfeen separatists have said they carried out Tuesday's raid.

About a dozen groups are fighting Indian rule in the fertile and picturesque Himalayan region in a revolt that has killed more than 35,000 people in 13 years.

Tuesday's third round of voting in state elections was the bloodiest so far, with 18 people killed, including the victims of the bus attack.

One of the state's most militant and violent districts goes to the polls next Tuesday in the fourth and final round of voting before counting starts.

Moderate separatists are boycotting the election and the ruling National Conference Party, a member of the federal coalition Government, is expected to be returned.

As well as triggering two wars since Britain carved up the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947, Kashmir was a key issue in their third and brought them to the brink of a fourth in June.

The world's newest declared nuclear powers have massed a million men along their border, backed by warplanes, missile batteries, artillery and tanks, since a December attack on India's Parliament.

- REUTERS

Further reading
Feature: The Kashmir conflict