Nine Hindu pilgrims were slain in a bus attack in India's Jammu.

Nine Hindu pilgrims were slain in a bus   attack in India's Jammu.

 

   Police said the driver lost control of     the bus when it was fired upon.

According to authorities, nine persons were killed and 33 were injured when suspected terrorists opened fire on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims in India's federal province of Jammu and Kashr.

Officials first reported ten deaths following the event on Sunday, but later lowered the total.

They said that the driver lost control following the attack, forcing the vehicle to plummet into a gorge in Jammu's Reasi area.

While rescue operations have completed, the Indian army and police are conducting a search operation to locate the attackers.

Officials claimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken "stock of the situation" and requested that the injured receive the best possible medical care.

 All individuals who committed this atrocious deed will be punished soon." Manoj Sinha, the region's chief administrator, posted on X (previously Twitter).

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Mr Sinha has announced a compensation of one million rupees ($12000; £9400) for the deceased's next of kin and 50,000 rupees for the injured.

The bus was on its way to the base camp of Mata Vaishno Devi, a prominent Hindu shrine, when it was fired upon. No one has claimed responsibility for the incident yet, but Mohita Sharma, the local police officer, told Reuters that suspected militants had "ambushed the bus". For more than six decades, the Himalayan territory of Kashmir 

Since 1947, the nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two wars over the Muslim-majority area, which they both claim but only partially govern. Since 1989, India-administered Kashmir has also undergone an armed insurgency against Delhi's administration, which has claimed thousands of lives.

Delhi accuses Islamabad of harbouring extremists and harming regional peace, which Pakistan rejects.

The attack occurred as Mr Modi took his third consecutive term as India's prime leader at a swearing-in ceremony in Delhi.

Jammu police disclosed the identities of the victims, including the bus driver. They come from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Two of the casualties are young people, two and fourteen years old.

A few survivors discussed their experience with the news agency ANI

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One of them claimed that even after the bus plunged into the gorge, gunfire continued and that the driver had been shot.

In Mr. Modi's previous government, Amit Shah, the minister of home affairs, expressed sorrow for the occurrence. He posted on X, the former Twitter platform, saying, "The culprits of this dastardly attack will not be spared and will face the wrath of the law." The head of the main opposition party, the Congress, Rahul Gandhi, questioned the level of security in the area. "This shameful incident is the true picture of the worrying security situation in Jammu and Kashmir," he wrote in a post on X.

Seven Hindu pilgrims, six of whom were women, lost their lives in 2017 when a gunfight broke out between police and terrorists on their bus as it was leaving the well-known Amarnath pilgrimage destination in the Anantnag area.