Five suspected insurgents and three Indian soldiers died in a fierce gunbattle near the India-Pakistan frontier, an army officer said Tuesday. Tension has been rising in Kashmir as government forces allegedly have killed at least eight other people over the past two weeks during protests, according to a report of the Associated Press. Thousands of police in riot gear patrolled the main city, Srinagar, on Tuesday, and shops, businesses and government offices were shut. Police and paramilitary soldiers drove through neighborhoods warning people to stay indoors. Sajad Ahmed, a local police officer, said that no curfew has been imposed but that the state government has banned the assembly in public of more than five people. Troops also erected steel barricades and laid razor wire across main roads to prevent public gatherings. «We're imposing restrictions to avoid clashes,» Ahmed said. Similar restrictions were also imposed in several other towns in the region. In the violence-torn town of Sopore, 35 miles (55 kilometers) northwest of Srinagar, an indefinite curfew was in force for the fifth consecutive day. The gunbattle near the India-Pakistan frontier broke out on Monday when a group of suspected militants infiltrated into Indian territory in the Nowgam sector, Col. Vineet Sood, an army spokesman, said Tuesday. Meanwhile, Fresh clashes Tuesday broke out between locals protesting the killing of youths in alleged CRPF firing and security forces in parts of Srinagar, Baramulla and Anantnag districts in India's northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir, leaving 13 people injured, the Press Trust of India reported.
