SRINAGAR. India. Aug 7: A separatist group in Kashmir vowed today to kill Indian radical Hindu leader Bal Thackeray- in retaliation for h ihreat against Islamic pilgrims. reports Reuter

Last month Thackeray, head of the militant Hindu Shiv Sena Party tn the western state of Maharashtra, i hreatened retaliation against Muslim Hajj pilgrims If Hindus embarking on s pilgrimage in Kashmir this month were attacked

The Lashkar-i-Taiba group issued a statement in Srinagar, summer capital of India a Jammu and Kashmir state, saying they were determined to kill Thackeray, one of the best-known Hindu radicals.

"What greater challenge could there be for Muslims than that the leader of these Infidels. Bal Thackeray, has threatened the followers of God to stop their very impor lant pilgrimage to Makkah. said the Lashkar-I-Taiba statement, written in Urdu.

We accept thi' '•'-’ttenfe and we resolve to finish this undesirable fellow off before the month of Hajj." it said, referring to the Muslim pilgrimage to Makkah

Thackeray had issued his warning through his party's newspaper in Bombay after HarkM-ul-Ansar. a Kashmiri separatist group, threatened pilgrims climbing this week to a mountain cave in Kashmir.

Tens of thousands of Hindu devotees arrived amid tight security today at Kashmir's Pahalgam mountain resort where five western tourists were kidnapped by Muslim militants last month

The pilgrims were on their way to Amarnath cave where they will worship a 12 foot high ice stalagmite which they believe symbol Ises the Hindu god Shiva's phallus, representing virility.

Harkat-ul-Ansar says its threat against the pilgrims is in retaliation for the destruction of the 16th century Babrl

mosque by Hindu zealots in Avodhya town in December. 1992.

About 3.000 people were killed in Hindu-Muslim riots following the destruction of the mcwjue.

Harkat-ul-Ansar also has taken responsibility for two bomb blasts which recently killed 18 people In Jammu

"Hindu pilgrims going to Amarnath are the same people who participated In the demolition of Babrl Masjid. LashkarIT alba said.

"What sin have we committed ? Probably the sin is that we believe in one God." it said.

AFP adds Pakistan has of fered to help win the release of five westerners held hostage by a Muslim guerilla group in Indian-controlled Kashmir, a top Foreign Ministry official said today.

"We have been in touch with the embassies of the countries whose nationals are held and we have told them that we would try to do whatever we can." Najmuddin

Sheikh told reporters.

AP adds from Islamabad: Pakistan accused the Indian government Monday of orchestrating the kidnapping of five western tourists.

The Al-Far an group Is demanding India free 15 Jailed guerillas In exchange for the five — an American, two Britons, a German and a Norwegian — captured on July 4.

But Najmuddin Sheikh, the number two person at the Foreign Ministry said Pakistan suspects India masterminded the kidnapings to tarnish the International Image of Kashmiri militants and Implicate Pakistan

In an audio tape released on Saturday the group said three of (heir hostages were critically 111 and could die

We have no knowledge of this particular group but we have our own suspicions .. (that It's) a breakaway group controlled by the Indian intelligence." Sheikh told reporters at a weekly briefing.