SRINAGAR, Feb 6 (1999) – Twenty people, including 11 separatist guerrillas and four soldiers, were killed in gunbattles in India’s troubled Kashmir valley, police said on Saturday.
Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting for Kashmir’s independence or merger with neighbouring Pakistan.
India, which controls two-thirds of Kashmir, accuses Pakistan of arming and training Kashmiri separatist guerrillas and “foreign mercenaries”.
Pakistan, which rules the remaining one third, says it only provides political and diplomatic support for the Kashmiri people in their “struggle for self-determination”.
More than 25,000 people have been killed in the nine-year-old rebellion in the Himalayan region.
In the latest clashes, three guerrillas, one soldier and five civilians were killed in a clash on Saturday some 97 km (60 miles) southeast of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
On Friday evening, four guerrillas and three Indian security personnel were killed in an another battle about 480 km (298 miles) southwest of Srinagar, police said.
In an another incident, Indian soldiers shot dead three militants near the Pakistani border.
Another guerrilla was gunned down by Indian security forces in the Poonch area of Jammu region. Jammu is the winter capital of the restive state.
