Three schoolboys latest victims of bloodshed

SRINAGAR, India -- Three schoolboys mistook a live grenade for a cricket ball, hitting it and blowing themselves up Tuesday. The incident raised the death toll to at least 50 in the latest surge of bloodshed over the contested state of Kashmir.

Violence over the past four days set off a row between the government of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the newly elected state government of Kashmir, which recently released several Islamic militants from jails.

Freeing the prisoners was part of the new regime's promise to bring a "healing touch" to the embattled Himalayan region. More than 61,000 people have been killed in the past 13 years of violence, in which militants seek either Kashmir's independence or merger with Pakistan.