Two suspected Muslim militants and an Indian Army soldier were killed on Thursday during a gun battle in revolt-hit Kashmir, in the latest of a series of recent clashes, police said. Government troops received a tip that rebels were hiding in a house in Khazanbal, a village 65 kilometers south of Srinagar and cordoned off the building, said Farooq Ahmed, a top police officer. A gunbattle broke out and went on for several hours until the suspects were killed, Ahmed said. Police believed the suspects were members of Hizb-ul-Mujahedeen, Kashmir's largest indigenous rebel group. The exchange of fire erupted late Wednesday when the Indian Army and counterinsurgency police raided a house where militants were said to be hiding about 70 kilometers south of the summer state capital Srinagar. “The ensuing encounter left two militants and a soldier dead,” a police spokesman said, adding two troopers and a policeman were wounded in the clash that lasted more than 12 hours. One of the militants killed was identified by officials as Adil Pathan, a senior commander of Hizb-ul-Mujahedeen, Indian Kashmir's most powerful militant group. On Thursday last week, Indian commandos stormed a hotel in Srinagar where two militants had been holed up for nearly 24 hours, killing the gunmen. A civilian and a policeman were also killed during the siege. Kashmir had been relatively stable in recent months, but Indian police have reported several prolonged clashes between troops and militants since the siege. Suspected rebels have also killed three of their former colleagues during the last week, police said. An insurgency erupted in 1989 against Indian rule of the Muslim-majority region, killing more than 47,000 people by the official count. Last week, suspected rebels attacked government forces in Srinagar's main commercial hub of Lalchowk, triggering an exchange of gunfire that lasted 22 hours. Two attackers, one police officer and one civilian were killed. Kashmir is split between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan. They have fought two wars over its control and they claim the territory in entirety. Anti-India sentiments run deep in the disputed Muslim majority region, where more than a dozen rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan since 1989.
