Sixteen people have been killed in violence across Indian Kashmir in the past 24 hours as a strike in protest at New Delhi's rule closed most shops and businesses in the state's main city.
Saif-u-Rehaman Bajwa, military chief of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, a leading separatist group, died in an overnight shootout in the summer capital, Srinagar, police said.
Elsewhere 15 people including 10 militants, four civilians and a soldier were killed in gunbattles and an explosion across the state since yesterday evening, a police statement said.
It said 12 people had also been wounded in rebel attacks during the same period.
Srinagar was closed for the latest strike against Indian rule, called by the main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, to mark the "black day" when Indian troops arrived in 1947 to counter an invasion by Pakistani tribesmen.
For its part, India's defence ministry marked today as "Martyrs' Day" and senior army and state officials laid wreaths at a memorial for soldiers and civilians.
Indian troops moved in after Kashmir's Hindu maharaja, facing an invasion by Pathan tribesmen, threw in his lot with India in return for help after neighbouring Pakistan was carved out of the subcontinent at independence from colonial ruler Britain.
That sparked the first of three wars between the neighbours who, now nuclear-armed, came close to a fourth last year.
India accuses Pakistan of arming, training and sending Islamic militants into its part of Kashmir, where at least 40,000 people have died in 14 years of separatist violence. Pakistan denies the accusation.