Massacres in Kashmir Leave 67 Dead

PAHALGAM, India â€”  Four massacres by suspected Islamic guerrillas opposed to a cease-fire have killed 67 people within a few hours in the disputed territory of Kashmir, police said today.

The separate attacks came as the Indian federal government prepared to talk to the main guerrilla group in Kashmir, which has been racked by an Islamic insurgency for 11 years.

Gunmen killed 11 people in the Hindu-dominated village of Pogal in southern Kashmir this morning, said Police Inspector-General S. P. Vaid of the Jammu district. The village is 108 miles south of Jammu, the winter capital of the Muslim-majority Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

There were three separate attacks Tuesday.

Attackers swooped down on Mir Bazar village near Anantnag late Tuesday, forcing people out of their homes, then lining up men and shooting them dead, said police in Srinagar, the summer capital, 25 miles to the north. Eighteen people were killed, the Press Trust of India reported. Those killed were workers at a brick factory who had migrated from other Indian states, police said.

In Achchabal, about nine miles from Anantnag, militants stormed into houses and killed eight migrant laborers, Vaid said.

The bloodshed came hours after 30 unarmed Hindu pilgrims and Muslims porters were killed Tuesday by suspected rebels as the group made its way to a religious shrine.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for any of the attacks. But police said they suspected Islamic guerrillas who oppose a Kashmir cease-fire and are fighting for the region’s independence or attachment to Pakistan.

“It’s an attempt to sabotage the peace process set in motion,� Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, the highest elected official in Kashmir, said after one of the Tuesday attacks.

Abdullah and the federal government have been trying to negotiate with guerrilla groups, notably the Hizbul Moujahedeen, which announced a unilateral cease-fire last week.