Kashmir Massacre Toll Climbs to 101

The death toll rose to 101 Wednesday from a two-day series of attacks in Kashmir that Indian police blamed on Islamic guerrillas.

A cease-fire by Kashmir’s largest guerrilla group had raised a glimmer of hope for peace after 11 years of fighting: Kashmiri families and tourists had begun venturing out to the picturesque spots in a province renowned for snowcapped mountains, clear lakes, fruit orchards and rushing rivers. On Tuesday and Wednesday, some of those same spots were among those bloodied by massacres.

Indian officials quickly blamed the Pakistani-based guerrillas for the deaths, while witnesses said some of those killed were the victims of reprisal shootings by Indian forces. Pakistan, which seeks control of disputed Kashmir, said such killings have been carried out in the past by Indian paramilitary groups.

In the first and worst attack, eight guerrillas sneaked into a crowd of unarmed Hindu pilgrims and Muslim porters on their way to a religious shrine near Pahalgam, 55 miles south of Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir state. They burst into a makeshift kitchen by a river just after dusk Tuesday and began firing automatic rifles at pilgrims huddled over their meager supper of fried bread and potatoes.

Indian security forces on alert for attacks at the shrine retaliated. In 20 minutes of gunfire, 35 people, two of them Kashmir militants, were killed and 94 others were injured.

The Hizbul Moujahedeen, the largest rebel group seeking independence for Kashmir or unification with Pakistan, called a cease-fire last month, and India agreed to talks.