Suspected militants shot dead at least 12 villagers, including four children, in their sleep in Indian Kashmir yesterday, a day ahead of talks between India and Pakistan over the disputed Himalayan region.
The attack, one of the biggest to target civilians in the troubled region in recent months, took place near a remote hilly village in Poonch district, about 160 miles north of Jammu, winter capital of Indian Kashmir, police said.
P.L. Gupta, inspector general of police for the Jammu region, said the dead included a 17-year-old girl and four children aged three, four, eight and 13. Ten people were also wounded in the attack, four of them critically, he added.
"The seven men killed were all members of the local village defence committee," Mr Gupta said, referring to groups of villagers who are armed and trained by Indian security forces to guard remote hamlets from militant attacks.
The dead were all Muslims, police added. No militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Another senior police officer suspected that the attack might have been triggered by a recent recruitment campaign on state-run TV which showed women in Kashmiri villages joining village defense committees and taking up arms alongside their menfolk.
"The attack took place in the same area shown on TV," the officer said. "This was probably to teach the villagers a lesson and scare the women away."
Elsewhere, troops laid siege to a village mosque in Pulwama district, south of Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir, after militants attacked a security patrol and took refuge in the mosque after they were chased by soldiers, police said.