Twelve people, including nine separatist guerrillas, have been killed in a string of shootouts in India's revolt-racked state of Jammu and Kashmir, police said today.
Rebel violence continues in Kashmir despite an easing of tension between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, who have been been locked in a border standoff since an attack on the Indian parliament in December by separatist guerrillas said to be based in Pakistan.
An Indian police spokesman said security forces shot dead three members of the banned Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group in an overnight gunbattle in Rajouri district southwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
Five separatist guerrillas were shot dead in two clashes with security forces in the neighbouring district of Poonch late on Tuesday, police said.
They said it was not immediately known whether the militants had entered from neighbouring Pakistan or were local insurgents.
Their origins were "still being ascertained", a police official said, adding, "They were militants as they were carrying weapons and fought back."
Elsewhere, an activist of Kashmir's ruling National Conference party, a militant and two civilians have been killed in separate shootouts in the troubled mountainous region since Tuesday evening, police said.