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35 killed in 2 days of violence
01/05/2006 16:09 - (SA)
Doda - Suspected Islamic militants raided a Kashmiri village and gunned down 22 Hindus, said police on Monday, as authorities uncovered the bodies of nine Hindu shepherds slain after being abducted elsewhere in the divided Himalayan region.
Thirteen shepherds were abducted at the weekend in Kashmir's Udhampur district.
Four were found dead on Sunday, and the bodies of the nine others were discovered on Monday afternoon, said a senior police officer, Rajesh Singh.
The raid on the village was the bloodiest by suspected Islamic militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir since a 2003 cease-fire between India and Pakistan.
The slayings came days before Kashmir's political separatists were to meet with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who suggested the killings would not hamper efforts to find peace in the region, divided between India and Pakistan.
"People of Kashmir have rejected and rebuffed terrorists repeatedly," he said.
'Showered bullets on us'
India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of backing the militants, even as the two rivals have talked peace. Singh, however, stopped short of blaming Islamabad for the attacks.
The more than half-dozen assailants, some of them in army uniforms, slipped into the village of Thava after dark on Sunday and coaxed wary villagers from their homes by using local guides, who told people the soldiers had come to meet residents.
"When we assembled outside the home of the village head ... they showered bullets on us," said Gyan Chand, one of five people wounded in the attack.
After the attack, survivors rushed to alert a nearby army camp, but the assailants fled before security forces arrived, said Sheesh Pal Vaid, a police inspector-general.
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