SRINAGAR, Feb 9 (2000) – Ten people, including three civilians, were killed and two seriously injured in stepped up violence in Indian Kashmir, a police spokesman said Wednesday.
The civilians were killed in a crossfire between Muslim separatists and Indian security forces Wednesday, the spokesman said.
He said the incident occurred after militants detonated an explosive device near a bank in the southern Kashmiri town of Tral as a police vehicle was passing by.
In the ensuing shooutout, three civilians were killed and two badly injured.
Security forces cordoned off the area and conducted a house-to- house search for the separatist gunmen who managed to flee the scene, the spokesman added.
In two other separate incidents seven militants were killed in the northern Baramulla district during gunbattles with Indian troops overnight Tuesday, he said.
“One of the gunbattles erupted when militants opened fire at a security force patrol which had sealed the village and were about to start house-to-house search for militants,” the spokesman said.
More than 25,000 people have been killed in violence linked to the Muslim insurgency launched in Kashmir in 1989.
Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, is claimed by both India and Pakistan and has been the cause of two of the three wars between them.
