TWENTY-three people were killed in Indian Kashmir, including four soldiers and a top counter-insurgent in the bloodiest day of fighting since the killing of a top rebel commander a fortnight ago, police said today.
Four soldiers, including an officer, and an Islamic militant were killed today in a suicide attack on an army camp in north Kashmir, police said.
The suicide attack that injured six more soldiers took place at 5.30am local time today (1000 AEST) in Nowgam area, 100km north of Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar, a police spokesman said.
One of the attackers was shot dead, while troops were combing the densely forested region to hunt down his accomplices, police said. The army camp is very close to the disputed Line of Control (LoC) - the de facto border which divides Kashmir into Indian and Pakistani administered regions.
Last week, Indian troops said they had killed five militants in the same area, foiling their bid to infiltrate Indian-administered Kashmir. In another attack, three civilians were killed and 14 others injured, including two policemen, when militants detonated a landmine on the main highway at Bijbehara, 50km south of Srinagar, police said. The attack took place when an army convoy was passing on the highway. An army vehicle suffered some damage.
A former rebel commander, Mohammed Yusuf alias Kukkay Parrey, who broke ranks and joined Indian security forces to fight militancy in Kashmir, was also killed today in an attack on his motorcade, police said. The attack, which also killed two of his associates and injured six others, took place in his home constituency Hajin, 40km north of Srinagar.
Yusuf led the Awami League, the political wing of Ikhwan - a pro-government militant organisation which was formed in 1994 by Parrey to assist security forces in counter-insurgency operations. Before joining politics in 1996, Yusuf headed Ikhwan. He was one of the top targets on the hit-list of militants.
Elsewhere in Kashmir, Indian security forces overnight shot dead 10 suspected Islamic militants in three different incidents, a police spokesman said. Two more people, including a retired policeman, were killed by suspected militants elsewhere in Kashmir today, police said. The latest killings bring to at least 167 the number of people who have died in Kashmir in an explosion of violence since Indian troops shot dead top rebel commander Gazi Baba in Srinagar on August 30. Baba, a Pakistani, had been on the list of most wanted rebels after India accused him of masterminding an attack on its parliament in December 2001 that killed 15 people, including the five attackers, and triggered a military standoff with Pakistan.
In another overnight incident, Indian troops surrounded a village in the Sumbhal area of northern Baramulla district after receiving a tip-off about the presence of three rebels. "As they (army soldiers) closed in on a house where the three militants had taken refuge the besieged militants opened fire," the spokesman said, adding that troops returned the fire and killed all three rebels.
In a separate incident, four militants were killed in Tangdar area of Baramulla district while trying to cross into India-administered Kashmir from the Pakistan-administered zone, he said. Another three militants were killed and three Indian soldiers injured in the Kalaroos area of Kupwara district, he said. Police in Kashmir also said today that Pakistani troops had shelled the Karna sector of Kupwara district along the LoC about 130km north-west of Srinagar.
More than 38,000 people have died in Indian Kashmir since the launch of an anti-Indian insurgency in the region in 1989 by Muslim militants. Separatists put the toll between 80,000 and 100,000.
Posted by Chida at September 14, 2003 08:24 PM