12 Killed in Separate Attacks in Kashmir

Twelve people, including a schoolgirl and six Indian paramilitary soldiers, were killed in separate incidents of violence in the troubled Kashmir region, police said Saturday.

The girl, part of a school group on the way to a picnic at the scenic resort of Pahalgam, was killed in an explosion when the bus in which she was riding ran over a land mine. Twenty other children were wounded in the blast in Anantnag, a district about 45 miles south of Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Separatist militants also set off a land mine in another part of the Himalayan region, killing six Indian paramilitary soldiers on patrol duty, police said.

A jeep carrying the Border Security Force men was blown to pieces in the blast in Udhampur, about 50 miles north of Srinagar, police said.

One of the victims reportedly was a local Border Security Force commander.

No group has claimed responsibility for either blast.

In another incident Saturday, a child was killed and seven other people were wounded when a rocket fired on an Indian army convoy missed the target and exploded inside a house in northern Kashmir.

“One child was killed and seven persons including five army soldiers were wounded when separatist militants fired a rocket . . . on an Indian army convoy at Arampora,” a security official said.

Arampora is in Kupwara district, about 50 miles north of Srinagar.

“But the rocket missed the intended target and exploded into a house,” the official said.

In separate incidents across the strife-torn region, two militants and two civilians were killed and three other people were wounded since Friday evening, a police statement said.

Violence in Jammu and Kashmir has escalated since the leaders of India and Pakistan failed to make progress on the dispute over the region in a summit in July.

Officials say more than 2,200 people have been killed since January.

Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting New Delhi’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir.