At least 13 people, including 10 Muslim guerrillas, were killed and 26 more injured in the past 24 hours as violence again erupted in the Indian zone of disputed Kashmir.
Meanwhile, Indian and Pakistani troops have traded gunfire along their border in the southern zone of Kashmir.
The police in Kashmir’s winter capital, Srinagar, said a man and a woman were killed and 20 injured in the city's residential Habba Kadal area today when militants hurled a hand grenade towards a security patrol missed its target and exploded among pedestrians.
Eleven of those injured were civilians and the remaining nine Indian troopers, a police spokesman said.
Six more people were injured today when riot police used batons and teargas to break up a religious parade in Kashmir, police said, adding that 55 more were arrested when the rally on the Muslim festival of Moharram turned into an anti-Indian march.
Security sources, meanwhile, said two alleged Muslim militants were killed Friday night in a landmine explosion as they tried to cross into Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani zone of the divided region.
Eight more militants, including one in Srinagar city, were killed in six separate overnight gunbattles with Indian soldiers in Kashmir, the police said, adding a civilian died when he was caught in one of the cross-fires.
AFP