Eight people died in two clashes in contested Kashmir, Indian police said today.
Police said three separatist rebels and three policemen were killed yesterday in a four-hour gun-battle 175 km north of Jammu, the winter capital of India's Himalayan Jammu and Kashmir state.
In another incident, also yesterday, two separatists including a district commander of the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen, died in a shootout with the police about 175 km east of Jammu.
Almost a dozen of militant groups are fighting mainly Hindu India's rule in its only Muslim majority state, where authorities say about 33,000 people have died in 12 years of rebellion.
India accuses neighbouring Islamic Pakistan of fomenting violence in Kashmir by arming militants and sending them across the border. Islamabad denies the charge.
The nuclear rivals have massed a million men along their border, raising fears of war, after India demanded Pakistan crush the militants in the wake of a December attack on the Indian parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatists.
