Muslim separatist guerrillas have massacred 19 members of one family as part of a gang war, Indian officials said yesterday.
The victims were shot late on Monday in the village of Sailan in Poonch district, some 200 km west of Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir. Indian security officials said the massacre was apparently in retaliation for an earlier killing by a guerrilla group commander.
Eleven girls, three teenage boys, two women and three men were killed in simultaneous attacks on three homes, an Indian spokesman said. "We think it was part of continuing inter-gang rivalry," he said. He added that gun battles between rival Muslim militant groups flared in mountainous regions of Poonch after the massacre.
In two separate attacks, Muslim guerrillas shot seven more Hindus yesterday in Udhampur district, some 150 km north of Jammu. The attackers also burned eight homes belonging to their victims. So far, none of Kashmir's two dozen Muslim rebel groups have claimed responsibility for the attacks, which came a day after the massacre of 37 Hindu labourers by Kashmiri guerrillas in the adjoining hill resort state of Himachal Pradesh.
Meanwhile, 24 people, including seven Hindus, were injured in a grenade attack yesterday in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar. A police spokesman said the explosion occurred in the heart of the city, adding that one of the victims, a woman, was in a critical condition.
The Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, yesterday rejected Pakistani demands for talks centred solely on the disputed region of Kashmir, saying other bilateral issues must also be addressed.
Mr Vajpayee told parliament that India was not prepared to limit talks with Pakistan to Kashmir and instead favoured freezing dialogue on contentious issues such as the Himalayan state.
"There are many other issues which have to be addressed," Mr Vajpayee said. "We are neighbours and we have to live together. Why should Kashmir alone be the sole agenda? But in spite of the Pakistani attitude, India will continue its efforts [for a bilateral dialogue] as improvement of relations with Pakistan is very important."
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Muslim separatist guerrillas in the Indian-held part of Kashmir. Pakistan denies the charge but says it gives diplomatic support to the campaign.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, and has emerged as the major flashpoint between the two countries who have fought two wars over the state in the past 50 years.
India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir. New Delhi controls the southern two-thirds of the region while Islamabad administers the northern third.
Mr Vajpayee also hinted for the first time that talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Mr Nawaz Sharif, on the sidelines of a regional summit in Sri Lanka last week had been a failure.
The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Ms Benazir Bhutto, said yesterday that Pakistan and India should continue political dialogue despite their disagreement over Kashmir.
"We can disagree about Kashmir but we can continue to have political means to seek a solution for Kashmir and have a good working relationship," Ms Bhutto said.
Pakistan should never ever abandon the people of Jammu and Kashmir, she said. "Our generation may be too weak to resolve this issue but we cannot steal the right of future generations away from them."
Meanwhile, the Indian Prime Minister has declared that India no longer needed to conduct nuclear tests and that he was committed to talks to join a global nuclear test ban treaty.
"We can maintain the credibility of our nuclear deterrent in the future without testing," Mr Vajpayee told parliament. "India remains committed to this dialogue with a view to arriving at a decision regarding adherence to the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty)."
Mr Vajpayee was speaking in a key debate in the lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, where opposition deputies challenged the government to come clean on its nuclear plans.
India, which carried out a series of nuclear tests in May, had opposed the test ban treaty when it opened for signature in 1996.
Analysts said Mr Vajpayee's statement suggested that New Delhi had shed some of its reservations over the nuclear test ban treaty.