Ten die in Indian Kashmir separatist violence

Ten people have been killed and 18 others injured in explosions and gun battles in India's Jammu and Kashmir state, police said…

Ten people have been killed and 18 others injured in explosions and gun battles in India's Jammu and Kashmir state, police said today.

They said suspected separatist guerrillas today threw a grenade at a police patrol in Kupwara 87km (54 miles) northwest of Srinagar, the state's summer capital.

The grenade exploded causing injuries to 16 persons, a police statement said.

Yesterday evening, two Indian soldiers were killed and another two wounded when militants detonated a landmine in the Baramulla district of north Kashmir, police said.

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Indian security forces this morning shot dead a commander from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group in a shootout in south Kashmir.

Seven others, including three militants and two Indian soldiers, have been killed in separate gun battles in the region since Friday evening, police said.

Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting New Delhi's rule in Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state.

Most of them have rejected an Indian ceasefire and intensified attacks on security forces across the region since November last year.

Authorities say more than 1,000 people have died since then.