Indian leaders, Kashmiri separatists vent outrage

Indian leaders and Kashmiri separatists united yesterday to condemn an attack on a bus that killed seven Hindu pilgrims and threatened to exacerbate tensions in the country's only Muslim-majority state.

Six women and a man died when unidentified gunmen opened fire late Monday on a bus carrying Hindus on the annual pilgrimage to a Himalayan cave revered as the abode of the god Shiva.

It was the worst such attack in the divided Himalayan region since 2000 when gunmen fired on a group of Hindu pilgrims, killing 32 people including two police officers.

The chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state said the attack was a "blot on all Muslims and Kashmiris".

"Pilgrims come to Kashmir every year for the yatra (pilgrimage) despite all difficulties. And seven people died today. I have no words to condemn it," Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed told reporters as she visited wounded victims in hospital.

Protests also took place in the country's financial capital of Mumbai and the industrial city of Ahmedabad in the west, reported Reuters.

"Pained beyond words on the dastardly attack on peaceful Amarnath pilgrims in Jammu and Kashmir," Modi said on social network Twitter.

"The attack deserves strongest condemnation from everyone," he added, saying he had spoken to the state's governor and chief minister to assure them of all possible help.

Tens of thousands of Hindus from all over India travel to Kashmir every year to visit a phallus-shaped ice formation in the Amarnath caves that is worshipped as a symbol of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, reported AFP.

Separatist leaders in Kashmir condemned the attack, which they said "goes against the very grain of Kashmiri ethos".

Tensions were already running high in Indian-administered Kashmir, where militant groups have for decades been fighting for independence or a merger with neighbouring Pakistan.