Five Hindu pilgrims were wounded in Indian Kashmir yesterday when suspected Islamist militants lobbed a grenade at their bus, police and witnesses said.

The attack took place on the outskirts of Srinagar, the summer capital of the disputed state, where thousands of Hindus began last week an annual pilgrimage to a cave shrine of Hindu god Shiva.

“We were chanting prayers when a loud explosion shook us,” Mahinder Kumar, who was attending to one of the wounded, told Reuters at a Srinagar hospital.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Kashmir in a 16-year revolt against New Delhi’s rule.

The two-month Amarnath pilgrimage has been targeted by militants several times in the past. No militant group claimed responsibility for yesterday’s attack.

Thousands of soldiers and policemen have been deployed along the pilgrimage route – a treacherous mountain trek which takes pilgrims to the shrine at a height of 3,800 metres (12,500 ft).