Associated Press
JAMMU, INDIA, July 21, 2003: Two grenade blasts by suspected Islamic guerrillas killed seven pilgrims and wounded 25 others on their way to one of the most revered Hindu shrines in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said. The explosions occurred at a community kitchen as thousands of people were making the steep climb to the mountaintop shrine of Vaishno Devi. “This is the work of militants,” Inspector-General P.L.Gupta, the head of police forces in the Jammu region, told The Associated Press. Attacks on the Hindu pilgrims in Jammu-Kashmir by Muslim terrorists in the past three years have left 59 people dead. Millions of Hindu devotees from across the world come to the town of Katra each month to make the 7.5-mile climb through narrow winding roads to worship the Goddess in the Vaishno Devi cave shrine.