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Police clashes with militants in Indian Kashmir kill three

At least three suspected militants were killed and two policemen wounded in two separate gun battles yesterday in the Indian portion of Kashmir, police said.

Police and the army cordoned off the village of Wahipora following a tip that some suspected militants were hiding there, said police officer Imtiaz Hussain.

Suspected rebels opened fire as government forces converged on their hide-out in the village, 40km south of Srinagar, the main city in the Indian portion of Kashmir, Hussain said. A gun battle left two suspected rebels dead and two policemen wounded.

Hussain said the suspected guerrillas belonged to Hezbul Mujahidin, Kashmir's largest militant group.

There was no independent confirmation of the police claim.

The fighting came a few hours before a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf in Havana, Cuba, on the sidelines of the Nonaligned Movement summit.

The two sides have been trying to resolve the decades-old Kashmir dispute, but failed to make any breakthroughs.

The two leaders are expected to order a resumption of the official-level dialogue stalled since train bombings in Mumbai in July killed more than 200 people.

India has blamed the bombings on Pakistan-based rebel groups.

In another joint operation in a nearby forested area by the village of Narwani yesterday, the army and police shot and killed one suspected militant, officials said.

Meanwhile, Colonel Hemant Juneja, an army spokesman, said a suspected militant killed in a gun battle with the army on Friday was a senior commander of the Lashkar-e-Tayabba, another key rebel group.

Nearly a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan since 1989.

More than 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
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