NEW DELHI -- Recent massacres in Kashmir share one feature: they are massacres of innocents, of men, women and children who have no political affiliations or aspirations. Their only crime was that they chose to live in Kashmir or happen to be passing through the state.
Barely 24 hours after 13 people were gunned down by extremists near the famous shrine in the Amarnath Valley early this week, another 15,including three children and two women, were shot dead in the Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir state.
In the first incident, militants targeted pilgrims on their annual trek to the Amarnath caves, which are sacred to Hindus. In the other incident, Muslim radicals chose a remote hamlet to protest New Delhi's refusal to toe Islamabad's line on Kashmir.