NEW DELHI, INDIA, May 17, 2002: In one of the deadliest attacks India has witnessed in recent years, three men disguised in army fatigues killed 30 people and wounded 48 with sprays of automatic gunfire in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which both India and Pakistan claim. The attack could provoke a military retaliation by India, which massed troops on the border after it blamed Pakistan-based militants for a suicide attack on its Parliament last December. In the attack, which took place at Kaluchak, on the outskirts of Jammu, Kashmir’s capital, the gunmen first opened fire on a busload of people, killing seven. They killed 23 more people, including 10 children, most of them ages 7 to 10, who were in a camp for families of the soldiers. The assailants were killed by soldiers in an hours-long siege. Indian intelligence officials said the attack was probably carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of two Pakistan-based militant groups that they also accused in the December attack on Parliament, which left 14 people dead.
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