A gunbattle between Muslim militants and Indian troops in the heart of Kashmir's main city entered a second day yesterday amid concerns for the safety of about 40 people trapped in nearby buildings.
Two soldiers have been killed and 24 people, including seven journalists, wounded in the fighting. Witnesses said the area had been cordoned off by hundreds of troops, who were backed by armored jeeps and trucks mounted with machine guns.
An unspecified number of militants had positioned themselves in two buildings in central Srinagar after they raided the city's main business center on Friday afternoon, sparking a fierce battle with troops.
Police and witnesses said some 40 people were trapped in a newspaper office, the Daily Aftab, and in a hotel next to a building where the militants were holed up.
"They are all scared but safe," Zahoor Ahmad, an editor on the Urdu language newspaper, said by phone from the office.
Yesterday morning, police and soldiers rescued at least 20 civilians, including some children, who had been stranded in a bank in the area as shots were exchanged between the guerrillas and troops, a police officer said.
``We have cordoned off the entire area and evacuated everybody,'' K. Srinivasan, the Border Security Force's intelligence chief in Kashmir, said yesterday.
Two or three militants were firing from the two buildings' windows, Srinivasan said.
Two policemen and three paramilitary soldiers were wounded yesterday when security forces tried to storm one of the buildings where the militants were thought to be hiding, a senior police officer said.
``They [the militants] fired heavily as a group of police and paramilitary soldiers tried to storm one of the buildings,'' he said.
Security officials said they planned to flush out the militants, armed with grenades and automatic rifles, soon but were being careful to avoid civilian casualties.
"On the backside of the building, we are drilling a hole to push soldiers in to flush out the terrorists," a Border Security Force officer, who asked not to be named, said without elaborating.
Television cameramen and photographers who had rushed to cover Friday's firefight got caught in the crossfire. Seven were hurt, including a cameraman who was in a critical condition.
In Srinagar, streets were quieter than usual as many people stayed indoors to keep out of the way.
"Incidents like this make me feel hopeless. Peace for Kashmir is like a mirage," Abdul Ahad, a 50-year-old businessman, said.
Two Islamic groups fighting New Delhi's rule over Kashmir, Al-Mansuriyan and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the raid although officials have not named any group suspected in the attack.
"Four mujahidin of Al-Mansuriyan and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen groups who have engaged Indian forces in a fierce gunbattle are safe and have inflicted heavy casualties on the security forces," a statement of Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen said.
More than a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting security forces in India's portion of Muslim-majority Kashmir for the territory's independence or its merger with mostly Muslim Pakistan. The 15-year insurgency has claimed more than 66,000 lives, mostly civilians.
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