Steve Quayle News Alerts

May 13, 2002
By Rama Lakshmi

NEW DELHI, India – Three armed men wearing military uniforms opened fire on a bus and stormed an army camp in Indian Kashmir today, killing at least 30 and injuring 47 before they were shot dead, Indian officials said.

The attack was the deadliest in Kashmir, a Himalayan region claimed by India and Pakistan, in the four months since the two neighbors massed 1 million soldiers and heavy artillery on their shared border. The military standoff, prompted by an attack on India's Parliament in December, has continued, even after Pakistan announced a crackdown on Islamic militant groups in January and banned several groups fighting to end Indian rule in its portion of Kashmir.

Today's attack overshadowed a visit to New Delhi by the U.S. assistant secretary of state for south Asian affairs, Christina Rocca, who brought with her a message of restraint.

"It appears to have been aimed to demonstrate to the world that despite the global coalition against terrorism, the terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir will continue to be active," Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani said in Parliament. "It is not a mere coincidence that the incident occurred at a time when a senior U.S. government officer was visiting our country."

The dawn attack began when three gunmen boarded an interstate bus in combat uniform and forced the driver to stop the bus at an army camp on the outskirts of the city of Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state.

As the passengers got off the bus, the gunmen opened fire and threw a grenade, killing seven people. They then made their way into the army camp, hurling more grenades and shooting at soldiers, according to an army spokesman in New Delhi.

"There was panic everywhere in which they jumped over a wall and entered the army cantonment," the spokesman said. "They hurled grenades and fired at the gatekeeper as they barged in. Soldiers inside the camp immediately shot at them but they managed to get into the residential quarters of the soldiers."

In the three-hour shootout that followed, all three militants and 30 others were killed and 47 injured. Of the 30, 11 were women and 10 were children, mostly between the ages of 4 and 10. The army spokesman said the attackers were armed with AK-47, hand grenades and explosives.

The news of the attack reached Rocca as she began a string of meetings at the Foreign Ministry here. But her message seemed to be lost as the details of the Kashmir attack emerged.

Rocca called the strike "barbaric" and said it was precisely these types of acts that the U.S.-led "war on terrorism is determined to stop."

Indian officials conveyed their concerns about continuing infiltration of militants from Pakistan into Indian Kashmir, despite repeated demands that Pakistan put an end to what India calls "cross-border terrorism." Officials said they hoped Rocca would carry their concerns to Islamabad on Wednesday.

Pakistan condemned today's attack.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training these Islamic guerrillas, who have been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir since 1989. Pakistan claims that it only gives moral support to those fighting a "freedom struggle."

Two groups, Al Mansooren and Jamait-ul Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for today's attack in a call made to a Kashmiri new agency. Advani, the Indian home minister, claimed in Parliament that Al Mansooren is a "new outfit floated by the Lashkar-i-Taiba," one of the Islamic militant groups that Pakistan banned in January.

Police officials say they expect such incidents to increase in the run-up to state elections in Kashmir, planned for September.

"When such incidents take place, it is difficult to exercise restraint," said Omar Abdullah, India's junior foreign minister, talking to journalists outside Parliament. "The world keeps advising restraint, and we are listening. But at some point of time we will no longer be willing to listen."

This is not the first time that a militant strike in Kashmir has taken place during a high-level U.S. official visit to India. In the past two years, visits by President Clinton, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have coincided with attacks on civilians and army officials in Kashmir.

"The militants want to draw international attention to Kashmir whenever an American official visits India," said K. Rajendra Kumar, senior police officer in Kashmir. "It is not a mere coincidence, it is deliberate."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company