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India says arrest shows Pakistan role in massacre

NEW DELHI: India said on Friday a man arrested at the scene of a massacre of 35 Sikhs in Kashmir this week had pointed to the involvement of two Pakistan-backed separatist groups.

Indian Home (Interior) Secretary Kamal Pande told a news conference that Kashmiri police had arrested Mohammad Yaqoob Wagay, who also "participated in the carnage" at the village of Chitsingpura on Monday.

"Mohammad Yaqoob during his questioning disclosed that the carnage was perpetrated by a joint group, predominantly consisting of foreign mercenaries," Pande said. "Further investigations are going on."

The 17-strong group was led by members of Lashkar-i-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen, Pande said.

Gunmen had shot dead the 35 victims after drawing them out of their homes on Monday, hours before U.S. President Bill Clinton began a state visit as part of a South Asian tour aimed at easing tensions between India and Pakistan.

The Home Ministry, without explicitly naming Pakistan, said in a statement the Sikh massacre was "an effort aimed at ethnic cleansing, (which) underlined the nefarious political designs of the terrorist groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir and their mentors across (the border)."

The two guerrilla groups denied the charge and blamed Indian agents for the massacre which they said was aimed at discrediting the cause of Kashmiri independence during Clinton's South Asian tour.

India has said the two groups are among those acting on behalf of Pakistan, which denies the charge, saying it only provides moral, diplomatic and political support to the armed guerrillas.

The groups' leaders operate from the part of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan or from Pakistan itself.

The massacre has prompted wide fears in Kashmir's Sikh community, which represents just 300,000 of the 7.9 million people in Jammu and Kashmir and has been largely untouched by the cycle of separatist violence in the state. Hindu civilians are usually the target.

Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting New Delhi's rule in Jammu and Kashmir where police and hospitals say more than 25,000 people have been killed in a decade of violence.-Reuters