Indian security forces claim to have shot dead the chief of a pro-Pakistan rebel group in Indian Kashmir.
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In an overnight gunbattle in Srinagar, summer capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, security forces killed "the supreme commander of Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami, namely Mohammed Rafiq Lone...in a fierce encounter," Indian police said in statement.
Later this morning, two Indian soldiers died when suspected separatists attacked an army patrol south of Srinagar, police said. No militant group has claimed responsibility.
Nearly a dozen such groups have been fighting against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, since 1989 in a revolt that has claimed at least 33,000 lives.
A police spokesman added that forces on both the Indian and Pakistan sides traded heavy mortar and artillery fire during the night along the Line of Control, the de factoborder separating Indian and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
The blasts of artillery shells and the rattle of gunfire have reverberated across the Line of Control, and the international border since May 17th, three days after a masscare in southern Kashmir India blames on Pakistan.
Police and officials say about 130,000 villagers living near the borders have fled to safer neighbouring districts to escape the daily artillery battles.
More than a million soldiers have been posted on the borders since an attack on India's parliament in December which New Delhi blames on Pakistani-backed militant groups.
AFP