Twenty-six men were killed and 17 were injured when suspected militants opened fire at tourists in India's Jammu and Kashmir territory, police said.

Gunmen killed at least 26 people and injured a dozen others in the disputed Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, a rare assault on tourists in an area fraught by decades of insurgency and opposition to India’s rule.

Security has been beefed up across Indian-controlled Kashmir a day after an attack killed at least 26 people, most of them tourists, as Indian forces launched a manhunt for the perpetrators of one of the deadliest attacks in the restive Himalayan region.