Fifteen killed in Indian Kashmir violence

Indian paramilitary troops on guard Friday on the outskirts of Srinagar, India

November 12, 2000
Web posted at: 7:02 AM HKT (2302 GMT)

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) -- Fifteen people, including seven Indian security force personnel, were killed in gun battles in India's violence-torn Jammu and Kashmir state, police said on Saturday.

They said three Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel, two separatist militants and two civilians were killed on Friday night in a gun battle in the Verinag area, 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Srinagar, the state's summer capital.

On Saturday, three Indian soldiers were killed in a gun battle near Banihal, 102 kilometers (63 miles) southeast of Srinagar.

In the neighboring village of Marmat, an Indian soldier was killed and another wounded when suspected separatist guerrillas set off a land mine, police said.

Elsewhere, two militants and two civilians were killed in separate shoot-outs across the Kashmir region, police said.

Five people, including a policeman, were wounded on Saturday when militants threw a grenade at a busy crossing in the heart of Srinagar, police said.

Indian security forces are battling separatists in what is India's only Muslim-majority state. India holds Pakistan responsible for the rebellion, a charge Islamabad denies.

India controls about 45 percent of the disputed Himalayan territory, while Pakistan holds just over a third and China the remainder.

Officials say more than 30,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since the rebellion began in 1990.

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