Suspected rebels lob grenade into crowded restaurant, killing four in Kashmir

Saturday, June 12th 2004, 9:52 am

By: News On 6

SRINAGAR, India (AP) _ Suspected rebels threw a grenade into a crowded tourist restaurant Saturday in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing four people and injuring 25 others, mostly tourists, police said.

The grenade blast triggered off an explosion of a cooking gas canister in the popular Poornima restaurant in Pahalgam, a holiday resort, adding to the casualties, said Saifuddin, a local police officer, who uses only one name.

The dead included two tourists, including a six-year-old girl, and two of the restaurant's cooks. Police were waiting to inform their families before making their identities known.

Al-Nasireen, little known rebel group, claimed responsibility for the restaurant attack in a phone call to a local news agency, Current News Service.

The scenic restaurant was crowded with tourists when the explosion occurred, said Saifuddin.

Pahalgam is about 60 miles southwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state.

Earlier Saturday, a hand grenade thrown by a suspected Islamic rebel at an army vehicle in a border town missed its target and exploded, wounding 20 civilians, four of them critically, police said.

The blast occurred in Handwara, a town close to the Line of Control which divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, said Altaf Khan, a local police officer.

Police blamed the attack on Islamic militants fighting for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan. More than 65,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 1989.

Elsewhere in the Kashmir, three suspected militants were killed in a gunbattle at Jumagund, 70 miles north of Srinagar, army officials said on condition of anonymity. The officials said the militants were entering from the Pakistani side of the border.

Separatist groups have continued fighting Indian forces despite a cease-fire accord between India and Pakistan signed last November.