SRINAGAR, Indian-ruled Kashmir, (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Grenade attacks and gun battles in disputed Kashmir were reported Sunday to have killed 29 people before India's Independence Day this week.Pakistan-based Resistance fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan territory said they had killed 18 Indian soldiers in a pre-dawn attack on an army camp in the north of the region. (Read photo caption below)
There was no Indian confirmation of Saturday's incident, which would be the deadliest Resistance attack in the area since an incursion two years ago that brought nuclear-capable neighbors India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen group said in a statement that dozens more Indian soldiers were wounded in the attack in the Bunial sector of the strategic Kargil heights region.
In other confrontations, 11 people including seven Resistance men and an Indian soldier were killed.
Thousands of Indian troops have thrown a tight security cordon across the Himalayan region before Independence Day on Wednesday, whose celebrations Resistance have targeted in the past.
An Indian soldier was killed and 15 people were wounded in a grenade explosion Sunday near a crowded bus station at Kupwara town, some 55 miles northwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
In separate gun battles Indian security forces shot dead four Resistance men in north Kashmir, a police statement said.
Elsewhere three Resistance men and three civilians have been killed in different shootouts in the troubled region since Saturday night, the statement said.
Security has also been tightened in New Delhi where police were quoted as saying that Kashmiri rebels could target government leaders including Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Resistance attacks around Independence Day.
STRIKE ON INDEPENDENCE DAY
Kashmir's main separatist alliance has called a general strike for Wednesday, when India marks the 54th anniversary of its independence from Britain.
The All Parties Hurriyat (freedom) Conference said the strike was meant as a reminder to the world of the Kashmir freedom struggle.
The Hurriyat bands nearly two dozen social, political and religious groups seeking self-determination for Muslim-majority Kashmir.
Muslim Resistnce groups have meanwhile condemned an acid attack on two women in Kashmir last week that was allegedly provoked by a breach of an Islamic dress code, newspapers in the turbulent region said.
The Resistance blamed the incident on Indian agents seeking to discredit their struggle.
Police say Muslim militants were behind the attack in which the women, who were not wearing veils, were sprayed with acid on a busy street in Srinagar. They have since left hospital.
Newspapers in Srinagar Sunday quoted three major militant groups -- Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen -- denying involvement in the attack.
More than 30,000 people have died since the revolt in Jammu and Kashmir began in 1989.
Violence has surged across the Kashmir Valley since a summit between the leaders of India and Pakistan last month failed to break the deadlock over the dispute.
PHOTO CAPTION:
The territory of Kashmir was hotly contested even before Indian and Pakistan won their independence from Britain in August 1947. Under the partition plan provided by the Indian Independence Act of 1947, Kashmir was free to accede to India or Pakistan. The Maharaja, Hari Singh, wanted to stay independent, but eventually decided to accede to India, signing over key powers to the Indian government - in return for military aid and a promised referendum. Since then, the territory has been the flash-point for two of the three India-Pakistan wars: the first in 1947-8, the second in 1965.