"The defence minister is here to ask questions. He spent close to an hour inspecting the Tanda army camp grounds and the main gateway which the militants had used on Tuesday as an entry," said an army source.

"There will be a thorough inquiry into the whole incident."

The garrison at Tanda, near the town of Akhnoor in southern Kashmir, was infiltrated by Islamic militants early Tuesday. The defence ministry said two rebels managed to shoot dead seven soldiers before they themselves were gunned down.

When top military brass visited the site later, the ministry said in a statement, a third militant who had remained holed up for nearly seven hours rushed out, lobbed grenades, opened fire with an automatic weapon and then blew himself up.

The commander of the Indian army in Kashmir, Lieutenant General Hari Prasad, and two other generals were injured while Brigadier V.K. Govil died.

India's media Wednesday slammed the military for falling hook, line and sinker for a classic guerrilla tactic in which bigger targets are lured to a place and then eliminated.

"The question thrown up by this attack is whether it was prudent for so many senior officers to have been together at the scene of an attack," asked the Hindustan Times.

"There are restrictions forbidding senior army officers next to each other in the chain of command even travelling together. Why were they ignored by the Indian army which is notoriously strict about protocol?"

The Indian Express said it was evident the army's northern command top brass were "caught off guard" by the remnants of the suicide squad.

"Had more lives been lost in the Tanda incident, which is already being viewed as a major security lapse, there could well have been a dark shadow on the entire Indo-pakistan peace process. And everyone... realises this," warned the newspaper.

Tuesday's bloody raid came just hours after a grenade attack on crowds of Hindus gathered to receive free food in the southern town of Katra on their way to the shrine of Vaishnodevi, which draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year.

Seven Hindus died and 42 others, including 12 women, were injured in the blasts.

The latest bloodletting follows a relative lull in violence in the disputed state, which has been gripped by optimism since an April 18 offer by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of a "hand of friendship" to Pakistan in their dispute over Kashmir.

WAR.WIRE