The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, New Delhi

Suspected Islamic militants armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked a paramilitary camp in northern India early Tuesday, killing eight people, police said.

The gunmen fought with police as they tried to enter a Central Reserve Paramilitary Force site in Uttar Pradesh state, police official Sanjiv Gupta told the Press Trust of India agency.

Seven policemen and a civilian were killed, the report said.

Police said they were hunting for the attackers and believed that two of them were injured. The NDTV news channel quoted home ministry sources as saying they suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba, a hardline Islamist militant group, was behind the attack.

India blames the group for an attack on its parliament in December 2001 and on a Hindu temple in western Gujarat state in 2002.

Tuesday's attack comes a little over a month after serial bomb blasts outside courthouses in Uttar Pradesh state left 13 dead and at least 40 injured.