INDIA: At least 10 people died in Indian Kashmir yesterday when Muslim rebels attacked Hindu temples targeted in a previous attack in March, police officials said.
Unofficial reports put the number of dead totalling at least 12 people, including two Indian soldiers. Indian troops ended the three-hour siege of the Raghunath Temple in the frontier city of Jammu, Indian Kashmir's winter capital, after killing a heavily-armed Islamic guerrilla.
A militant suicide squad had stormed and seized a popular Hindu temple after throwing in grenades and spraying the crowded area with automatic gunfire.
Mr S. Stalin of the paramilitary Central Police Reserve Force, confirmed the 150-year-old temple complex was empty of any threat.
"If there was a second terrorist inside the temple then he must have fled the scene. At present the complex is clear," he said.
National Security Guard commandos were airlifted from New Delhi to Jammu to deal with the siege.
Hundreds of Sunday evening worshippers had congregated in the Raghunath temple, when the gunmen struck.
Soldiers surrounded a smaller Shiv shrine, 400 yards away from the Raghunath temple to clear it of a militant inside with guns and grenades.
"One heavily-armed militant is inside that temple and we will very soon get him," Kashmir state police chief Mr A.K. Suri said.
None of the numerous militant groups fighting Kashmir's 13-year old civil war for a Muslim homeland in which over 37,500 people have died, has claimed responsibility for the temple attack. But security officials said their modus operandi indicated that the suicide gunmen belonged to the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-taiba (Army of the Pure) militant group that is in the forefront of Kashmir's insurgency. The Hindu-nationalist-led federal coalition spokesman, Mr V. K. Malhotra, blamed Pakistan for the attack.
India's ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party, which is in the opposition in Kashmir legislature, blamed Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's policies for the rising militant attacks in the Himalayan territory.
"This is a result of giving a free hand to terrorists," BJP General Secretary Mr Mukhtar Abbas Naqvisaid.
Emotions, meanwhile, were running high across Jammu with locals armed with home-made weapons taking to the streets in an attempt to combat the attackers.
Militants made an abortive attempt in March to attack the temple, which is visited annually by millions of Hindu pilgrims. Two months ago, 27 Hindu devotees were killed in the western state of Gujarat after two Lashkar militants stormed the temple of Akshardham. The two gunmen were killed by commandos after an overnight gun battle in which several security men died.
Last night's attack is the third in Kashmir in as many days in which nearly 35 people have died.
A landmine blast and clashes left 22 dead on Saturday, the bloodiest day since a new state government took office earlier this month calling for an end to the violence.
The landmine, planted by suspected separatist militants, blew up a bus, killing 12 people, including six soldiers, and wounding 23, authorities said.
A Kashmiri news agency said two Pakistan-backed militant groups, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-e-Jehad Islami had claimed responsibility for the attack near Qazigund, 45 miles south of the state's summer capital Srinagar, that sent the bus hurtling down a 300-foot gorge.
An army spokesman said the civilian bus was hired by the military to transport soldiers and their families from Srinagar to Jammu.
Insurgents also tried assassinating state rural development minister Peerzada Mohammed Sayeed by attacking his motorcade but he managed to escape.