KASHMIR: Islamic militants yesterday fired on India's security forces near the funeral of Kashmir's assassinated law minister, panicking over 2,000 mourners that included a junior foreign minister and the state chief minister.
Police said the insurgents launched rockets and fired assault rifles at an army detail that had thrown a security cordon around Sogam village, 75 miles north of Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar, a short distance from where state leaders had gathered for the burial ceremony of Mr Mushtaq Ahmed Lone, killed by gunmen at an election rally on Wednesday.
Witnesses said at least three soldiers were injured in the attack following which Mr Lone's body, wrapped in a white shawl, was buried.
"These killings and attacks are meant to disrupt next week's polls. But you will find no change in our resolve to go ahead with the election process," the state chief minister, Mr Farooq Abdullah, declared at the burial ceremony. His son, Omar, who is junior foreign minister, the state's ruling National Conference party head and widely expected to succeed his father, blamed Pakistan for the killing.
The Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, attending the United Nations General Assembly session in New York was less direct in apportioning blame and said Mr Lone's murder was aimed at "sabotaging" Kashmir's elections in which the first of four rounds of voting is due on Monday and the last on October 8th.
India wants an impressive voter turnout and a peaceful poll to reinforce its rule over Kashmir, a third of which is occupied by Pakistan, which also lays claim to the rest. It has stationed over 100,000 police and paramilitary personnel for the polls while some 350,000 soldiers are deployed alongside in a high state of alert along Kashmir's border with Pakistan and on counterinsurgency operations.