JAMMU, India (AP) — Suspected Muslim militants killed 13 Hindus in remote villages in India’s restive northern state of Kashmir, police said Wednesday.
The killings came two weeks after guerrillas massacred 25 Hindus in a mountainous village, prompting residents to demand better security in the area that borders Pakistan, India’s hostile neighbor.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but police blamed guerrillas fighting for the independence of Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state.
On Tuesday, guerrillas sprayed Hindu villagers with automatic fire in Mangalthotha, 140 miles northeast of Jammu, killing five people. The villagers were returning from a hospital with the bodies of four other Hindus who had been gunned down by guerrillas a day earlier.
Police also said 10 Hindus from the village of Mangalthotha were missing. It was not clear if the militants had kidnapped them or if they had run away.
State police chief Gurbachan Jagat said the attacks aimed to force Hindus to move out of the districts, where Muslims are in a slight majority.
Dozens of groups in Kashmir are fighting for independence or to merge with officially Islamic Pakistan.
More than 16,000 people have been killed since the insurrection erupted in 1989.