A minimum of 10 individuals have died and 33 injured after suspected militants fired on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims within the Indian federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, police officers mentioned.
The driving force misplaced management, inflicting the bus to plunge right into a gorge in Reasi district of Jammu, they added.
Whereas rescue operations have concluded, a search operation by the Indian military and police is underneath approach to observe down the attackers.
Officers mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken “inventory of the state of affairs” and requested for one of the best medical care to be offered to the injured.
“All these behind this heinous act might be punished quickly,” Manoj Sinha, the area’s prime administrator, wrote on X (previously Twitter).
Officers say the bus was on its approach to the bottom camp of the well-known Hindu shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi when it was fired upon.
Nobody has claimed duty for the assault however Mohita Sharma, the district police chief, instructed Reuters that suspected militants had “ambushed the bus”.
The Himalayan area of Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for over six many years.
Since 1947, the nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two wars over the Muslim-majority territory, which each declare in full however management partly. Since 1989, Indian-administered Kashmir has additionally seen an armed insurgency in opposition to Delhi’s rule, claiming hundreds of lives.
Delhi accuses Islamabad of harbouring militants and disrupting peace within the area, a cost Pakistan denies.
The information of Sunday’s assault broke as Mr Modi took oath as India’s prime minister for the third consecutive time period at a swearing-in ceremony in Delhi.
The passengers are but to be recognized however it’s believed they’re from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Ms Sharma instructed a newspaper.
Photographs confirmed some injured individuals, together with a girl, being taken to a hospital in Jammu for therapy.
Amit Shah, who was residence minister in Mr Modi’s earlier authorities, expressed grief over the incident.
“The culprits of this dastardly assault won’t be spared and can face the wrath of the regulation,” he wrote on X, previously Twitter.
Rahul Gandhi, the chief of principal opposition occasion Congress, questioned the safety state of affairs within the area.
“This shameful incident is the true image of the worrying safety state of affairs in Jammu and Kashmir,” he wrote on X.
In 2017, seven Hindu pilgrims, six of them women, were killed after their bus, coming back from the famed Amarnath pilgrimage website in Anantnag district, received caught in a gun battle between police and militants.
