Death toll rises to 51 in Kashmir Valley clashes

The new round of violence between security forces and Islamic militants escalated Friday when a land mine killed prominent Shia Muslim leader Agha Syed Mehdi.

On Sunday, the army took journalists through Batapora, a smoldering village outside of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir. A couple more bodies may be found in the rubble, said Col. A.K. Das.

Brig. Baldev Singh said the fighting began when the army received information that four militants were meeting in a home in the village, but when the house was surrounded on Thursday, militants started firing. That battle went on until Sunday.

During the 11-year Islamic insurgency in Kashmir, local residents have often accused the army and police of burning their property in retaliation when militants kill security force officers.

More than 30,000 people have been killed since the insurgency began, according to official figures. Human rights activists put the number at 60,000.

"It was the army that burnt our houses," said Nafasia, 45, a widow who did not give her last name, wailing as she pointed toward her burned, wooden house. "Two school-going girls, Masooma and Sheba, were killed by the army in front of me."

The army said Saturday that the bodies of two girls, aged 8 and 16, were found in one of the houses from where the militants were firing. Ghulam Mohammad Shah, 65, said he and 10 other people were trapped in one of the houses without food for four days. Shah said he had seen soldiers setting afire the houses around him.

About 50,000 people from both Shia and Sunni communities took part Saturday in the funeral procession of Medhi, an independent politician and a Shia, who was killed along with his driver and four security guards in the blast Friday.

Police suspect the land mine that killed Mehdi was triggered by Islamic militants who want to sever the territory from India and join it with Pakistan, which controls one-third of the Himalayan region.

Both countries have claimed all of Kashmir since the bloody partition that carved two independent nations out of British India in 1947. The disputed region has sparked two of three wars between India and Pakistan. Most of the militant groups that have fought in Kashmir since 1989 are predominantly Sunni Muslims.

(AP)