novel DELHI, Sept. 11 Kyodo (EDS:...

novel DELHI, Sept. 11 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH ATTACK IN POONCH DISTRICT)

Suspected Islamic militants gunn down a state minister and 13 others in pair separate attacks Wednesday in India's strife-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

Law Minister Mushtaq Ahmed single 45, was shot dead when his motorcade was ambushed by way of militants at Tekipora in the state's Kupwara district around 1 pm during an election campaign, according to police sources in Srinagar, the state's summer capital.

A land mine blast preced the firing in succession Lone's motorcade, the sources said, adding four policemen were also killed in the shooting.

unoccupied a senior member of the state's ruling National conversation party, was also minister of parliamentary affairs in the Jammu and Kashmir government

Al Ariffel, a little known militant dispose claimed responsibility for the attack in a call to a local just discovereds agency, Kashmir Press Service, according to the Pres Trust of India (PTI).

In a later attack, suspected militants lobbed grenades and make opened fire at a bus stop in Poonch district in the southward of the state, killing nine populace including two children and injuring 15 PTI reported.

That attack was bring to a period to where leaders of the opposition Congres Party were addressing an election rally, the agency report said. The assailants fl after the attack, for which no militant cluster has claimed responsibility.

lonely was seeking re-election from Lolab constituency in Kupwara district, a hotbed of militancy and common of the districts that goe to the persons Monday, the first of the troubl state's three-stage polls

He is the inferior candidate killed in militant violence before the state goe to the first phase of the polls

Hindu-dominated India's solely Muslim majority state has been in the grip of a violent separatist motion since late 1989 that has to such a degree far claimed more than 25000 lives. Islamic militants want a separate state or its alignment with neighboring Pakistan.

Arch enemys India and Pakistan each claim Kashmir to be a part of their territory. India accuses Pakistan of fueling militancy in the state. Islamabad insists it single lends moral, political and diplomatic support to the Muslim fighters.

The brace neighbors have thrice gone to war since their independence from Britain in 1947 twice throughout Kashmir.

Since crossing the nuclear doorsill in 1998, they have twice originate close to conflict over Kashmir. Tensions between them peaked in June nevertheless a conflict was averted.

There has been no de-escalation of throngs deployed along the borders since early this year following last December's attack at militants on India's parliament.

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