SRINAGAR, India – Suspected rebels threw a grenade into a crowded tourist restaurant Saturday in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing four people and injuring 25 others, mostly tourists, police said.
The grenade blast triggered off an explosion of a cooking gas canister in the popular Poornima restaurant in Pahalgam, a holiday resort, adding to the casualties, said Saifuddin, a local police officer, who uses only one name.
The dead included two tourists, including a six-year-old girl, and two of the restaurant's cooks. Police were waiting to inform their families before making their identities known.
Al-Nasireen, little known rebel group, claimed responsibility for the restaurant attack in a phone call to a local news agency, Current News Service.
The scenic restaurant was crowded with tourists when the explosion occurred, said Saifuddin.
Pahalgam is about 60 miles southwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state.
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