SRINAGAR, Indian-ruled (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Eight people have been killed and 10 wounded in the latest explosions and shootouts in the Indian-ruled state of Jammu and Kashmir, Indian police said on Friday.
An Indian policeman was killed and three people were wounded on Friday when a crude bomb planted in a transistor radio exploded in a bus in the Himalayan state's border district of Rajouri, Indian police said.
The Indian policeman picked up an unclaimed radio from the roadside and got into a bus when the bomb went off, an Indian police official said.
No Resistance group claimed responsibility for the blast but Indian police officials blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group which India say was also behind last week's suicide attack on parliament.
President Bush announced on Thursday that the Lashkar-e-Taiba had been included in a list of organizations and individuals whose assets had been blocked in the U.S.-led fight against terrorism. (Read photo caption below)
Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of a dozen Muslim Resistance groups fighting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir, has carried out numerous attacks on security forces across the region over the past two years.
Later on Friday seven people including three Indian soldiers were wounded when unidentified Resistance men threw a grenade at an Indian army vehicle in Budgam district west of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
Four Resistance men and three civilians were killed in separate shootouts over the previous 24 hours across the troubled region, Indian police said on Friday evening.
India blames Pakistan for fomenting violence in Kashmir by arming Resistance groups and sending them across the border. Islamabad denies the charge, saying it only gives moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people's struggle for self-determination.
Authorities say about 30,000 people have been killed in the country's only Muslim-majority state in about 12 years of rebellion. Separatists put the figure at closer to 80,000.
PHOTO CAPTION:
President George W. Bush is joined by Secretary of State Colin Powell(L) in the White House Rose Garden where Bush announced new moves to block the finances of two more groups allegedly linked to terrorism. Bush said one organization gave nuclear information to the al Qaeda network and a Kashmir-based group he said aimed to disrupt India-Pakistan relations. (Larry Downing/Reuters)