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Militants kill 9 Amarnath pilgrims, injure 32

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

Nine Amarnath pilgrims were killed and 32 wounded when militants on Tuesday morning attacked the heavily guarded base camp for the pilgrims at Nunwan on the outskirts of Pahalgam, nearly 100 km from Srinagar in the south Kashmir district of Anantnag.

One militant, who has been identified as a Pakistani on the basis of a note found in his pocket, was killed when security forces retaliated, according to police sources in Srinagar.

They said that militants first attacked the Nunwan camp with a hand grenade followed it up by firing heavily from automatic weapons.

"In the grenade explosion and the firing eight pilgrims died while 32 are wounded. We have shifted 13 pilgrims to Srinagar for treatment whose condition is serious," said police sources.

He said the area was immediately cordoned off by the security forces and searches were mounted. No one has yet admitted responsibility for the attack.

Official sources said the killed militant, Abu Qassim, had emptied four magazines of his assault rifle before being killed.

They said that 3000 pilgrims from various states had reached Nunwan base camp on Monday evening and they were scheduled to leave for Chandanwari in heavily guarded vehicles on Tuesday on way to the cave shrine.

Following the attack the pilgrims were stopped at Pahalgam and not allowed to proceed to Chandanwari. Later, the pilgrims left for Chandanwari under tight security on way to the cave shrine.

Sources said that the Jammu-bound pilgrims who had returned to Nunwan after darshan at the holy cave also left for Jammu.

The Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Ashok Suri and the Kashmir range police chief K Rajendra airdashed to Pahalgam to review the situation.

Earlier on July 30, militants had attacked a cab carrying Amarnath pilgrims near Lazbal Anantnag with a hand grenade killing two persons, including a pilgrim and driver of the cab on the spot.

The eight pilgrims killed in the attack have been identified as:
Bihari Singh, S/O Dev Singh R/O Nehru Nagar Rajasthan
Kailash Singh Dabbar S/O Jaggar Nath Dabbar R/O Rampur MP
Miss Damli D/O Hari Chand R/O Patel Nagar New Delhi
Deep Pal Chander C/O Indian Bank
Swaroop Swami R/O Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Yoga Singh S/O Sardar Moga Singh R/O Punjab
Mohan Lal Soni S/O Dev Lal Soni R/O Rangunj Rajasthan
Raj Bajpai S/O R. Bajpai R/O UP
Manoj Sehgal, Jaipur, Rajasthan

29 injured persons have been identified as:
Radhay Shyam (Samba Jammu)
Ashish Srivastava (Bhopal)
Suresh Munshi (New Delhi)
Hari Das (Rajasthan)
Mandrika Singh (West Bengal)
Arvinder (Himachal Pradesh)
Moti Lal (UP)
Anju Sharma (Jammu)
Shusheel Kumar (Chandigrah)
Tooka Harshiv (UP)
R.S.Verma (UP)
Darshan Singh (Punjab)
Pravin (New Delhi)
Ram Lal (Gujarat)
Reshap Thaya (New Delhi)
Aman Deep (New Delhi)
Rajesh (New Delhi)
Vijay Kumar (UP)
Farooq Ahmad (Anantnag)
Rajeev Lal (Jharkhand)
Kirpa Ram (Gandhinagar)
Manju Ram (Towher)
Jamna Bai (Gujarat)
Shanta Bai (Maharastra)
Janki Kiran (Patel Nagar Gujarat)
Prakash Singh
M A Shiekh (Bejibehara Kashmir)
Jagdesh Prasad (UP)
Harish Jaswal (Lucknow).

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