SRINAGAR, June 29 (2006): Authorities in Indian Kashmir ordered an investigation on Thursday into the creation of a stalagmite after pilgrims who consider it a symbol of a Hindu god said they were outraged by the artifice. Pilgrims discovered the artificial stalagmite when the hugely popular annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath cave shrine began this month. Authorities in charge of the shrine said they created the phallus-shaped stalagmite -- regarded as a symbol of Lord Shiva, the god of destruction -- so that devotees...

SRINAGAR, India, June 24 (2006) : Troops shot dead eight suspected Muslim militants on Sunday as they tried to cross the border from Pakistani-held Kashmir, a military spokesman said. It was the highest number of guerrillas killed in a single day in the Himalayan region in recent weeks. "Two groups of infiltrators were challenged in Uri and Kupwara sectors, which resulted in fierce firefights," army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel A.K. Mathur said. Uri and Kupwara lie along a military boundary known as the Line of...

SRINAGAR, June 22 (2006):- Unidentified militants threw a grenade at the crowded house of a prominent dervish in Kashmir on Thursday, killing two people and wounding 20, police said. "The grenade exploded in the lawn of the house of Abdul Ahad. Ahad Sahib escaped unhurt," said a police spokesman. A man and a woman wounded in the attack died in hospital, he added. No militant group claimed responsibility for the attack near Sopore town, 50 km (30 miles) north of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu and Kashmir...

SRINAGAR, June 21 (2006): Five Hindu pilgrims were wounded in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday when suspected Islamist militants lobbed a grenade at their bus, police and witnesses said. The attack took place on the outskirts of Srinagar, the summer capital of the disputed state, where thousands of Hindus began last week an annual pilgrimage to a cave shrine of Hindu god Shiva. "We were chanting prayers when a loud explosion shook us," Mahinder Kumar, who was attending to one of the wounded, said  at a Srinagar...

TITRINOTE, June 20 (2006): A second bus service linking the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of disputed Kashmir was launched on Tuesday amid tight security and considerable fanfare. The service linking Poonch in Indian Kashmir and Rawalakot in Pakistani Kashmir was welcomed by ordinary Kashmiris, many of whose families have been divided since the region was split when India and Pakistan fought their first war in 1947. "I'm very happy. I never thought we would ever come here. Now, it's become reality,"...

SRINAGAR, June 20 (2006):Two former Jammu and Kashmir ministers were arrested here Tuesday for their alleged involvement in a sex scandal that has rocked the state for over a month. Ghulam Ahmed Mir, a senior Congress leader and former state works minister, was arrested by the Central Bureau Of Investigation (CBI) in New Delhi Tuesday. Mir, a sitting legislator, has been evading arrest after his name figured in the scandal. The CBI also arrested Raman Mattoo, a sitting MLA and a former minister of state for...

SRINAGAR, June 18 (2006): Hundreds of people watched in rapt attention on Saturday night at an old, closely guarded cinema hall in Srinagar, the centre of a violent, 16-year Islamist revolt against Indian rule in Kashmir. But it wasn't an anti-India sermon being delivered by an imam in the Muslim-majority state. Instead, weary of the wrangling and conflict over their region, they were watching the premiere of 'Akh Daleel Loolech' (A Love Story), the first Kashmiri-language feature film to be made in nearly four...

JAMMU, June 16 (2006): The Indian army saw the first suicide of a female officer, who shot herself at her camp in the troubled region of Kashmir, police and army officers said on Friday. Lieutenant Susmita Chakraborty, 25, had asked her sentry to handover his rifle on Thursday, saying she wanted to be photographed with it at the Northern Command headquarters near Udhampur, northeast of Jammu city, the Indian state's winter capital. "She was found in a pool of blood when security personnel heard a gunshot from inside...

JAMMU, June 16 (2006): Suspected militants killed a villager in Indian Kashmir by slitting his throat and cut off the tongues and noses of four others, accusing them of being police informers, authorities said on Friday. The attackers also beat up seven other villagers and set several houses ablaze late on Wednesday in a remote village near Mahore town, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Jammu city, the Indian state's winter capital. "It is a mountainous village and it takes six hours on foot to reach there from the...

SRINAGAR, June 11 (2006): A prominent journalist in Jammu and Kashmir was abducted at gunpoint here but escaped although the kidnappers fired at him from close range. Shujaat Bukhari, special correspondent of The Hindu newspaper, said gunmen seized him from Residency Road in the heart of the city Saturday evening while he was leaving the office of a news agency. "As soon as I came out, a youth suddenly appeared in front of me. He forced me at gunpoint to board an auto rickshaw in front of the shopping complex,"...