Pakistan blamed for Kashmir deaths

The militants are said to have fired indiscriminately

India says it holds Pakistan directly responsible for an attack by suspected separatist militants on an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir on Tuesday.

There were children among the dead

The accusation was made by Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes after he visited the camp near the winter capital Jammu and those injured in the attack, which left more than 30 dead.

The United States envoy, Christina Rocca, who is in the region for talks on Kashmir, said infiltration by Islamic militants into Indian-administered Kashmir must stop.

She was speaking in Delhi before leaving for Pakistan.

The attack at Kaluchak was the bloodiest since nearly 40 people died in a raid on the state assembly in the summer capital Srinagar last October.

Condemnation

Pakistan earlier condemned the killing of civilians in the attack in which women and children died.

A government statement called for an impartial investigation without condemning the attack itself.

The Indian Government has suggested it was timed to coincide with the arrival of the US envoy in Delhi and a police official said he believed the militants were Pakistanis.

Rocca is to press US concerns about Kashmir tensions

"This is not a coincidence that the incident has occurred at a time when a senior US State Department official is visiting our country," Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani told parliament.

Ms Rocca, whose visit is aimed at cooling tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, condemned the violence as "barbaric terrorism".

She added the US-led international war on terrorism aimed to stop such attacks.

Indian officials said she would be shown evidence that Pakistan is backing militant activity.

In its statement, the Pakistani Government also pointed to the visit by Ms Rocca, saying that attacks in Kashmir tended to "coincide with high-level visits to the region".

Gun battle

The three attackers, who were wearing army uniforms, arrived by bus at the Kaluchak camp early on Tuesday morning.

Officials said they opened fire indiscriminately with assault rifles and threw grenades, killing seven other bus passengers before storming the camp gate.

The attackers were eventually killed during a gun battle with soldiers and police.

No organisation has admitted carrying out the attack, but Indian officials suspect Pakistan-based groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

A police spokesman, Subash Raina, told Reuters news agency that all three attackers were believed to be Pakistanis.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947.