Suspected Kashmiri separatist militants have killed 16 people including a senior Indian politician in separate attacks in Kashmir today.
The attacks come five days ahead of local elections in the Muslim-dominated territories which the separatists are boycotting.
The Indian-appointed Parliamentary affairs minister Mushtaq Ahmad Lone, who was to run for a new term in the controversial election next week, was travelling through his constituency in the northern Kupwara district when he was killed.
Exact details of the attack were not immediately available.
Two of the state minister's bodyguards were killed and four people were injured in the attack, police said.
All leading separatist groups have refused to participate in the election.
Overnight, suspected rebels also killed Mehra Begum, a district leader of Kashmir's ruling National Conference party in the northern Baramulla districts, police said.
In southwestern Poonch district, gunmen Wednesday opened indiscriminate fire on a bus stand near which a candidate from the opposition Congress party was holding a rally, according to police.
Twelve people were killed: eight soldiers or policemen, two rebels, and two civilians, one of them a 12-year-old. At least 18 other people were injured, 10 of them civilians, officials said.
Both Kupwara and Poonch districts take part Monday in the first of four rounds in the Kashmir election. The final phase is October 8.
Rebels fighting to end India's rule over the Muslim-majority Himalayan province have threatened to kill anyone participating in the election, with one militant outfit saying it had squads to "eliminate" all candidates for the assembly.
The Kashmir Press Service, a local news agency, said it received two calls claiming responsibility for Lone's assassination.
One caller identified himself as a spokesman for the pan-Islamic movement Lashkar-e-Taiba, which New Delhi blamed in part for a December 13 attack on its parliament that sent tensions spiralling with arch-rival Pakistan.
Also claiming responsiblity was a previously unknown group called the al-Arifeen squad.
More than 36,500 people have died in the region since 1989, or twice that according to separatists.
India has blamed the electoral violence squarely on its arch-rival Pakistan, which it accuses of arming, funding and training the rebels.
Pakistan denies it backs the rebels and has called the provincial election a ploy to legitimise India's "illegal occupation" of Kashmir.
AFP