Seven dead in militant skirmish in Kashmir

A team of militants attacked a group of paramilitary soldiers on the outskirts of the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir yesterday, leaving five soldiers and two militants dead and 10 other people injured, a police official said.
By The Newsroom
Published 13th Mar 2013, 22:14 BST

It was the bloodiest militant attack in Srinagar in years.

The soldiers were inside a school compound for the children of police officers when the insurgents attacked, officials said.

No students or teachers were at the school because of ongoing strikes in the wake of the February execution of a Kashmiri militant.

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Five of those injured were members of the paramilitary force, the Central Reserve Police Force, and five were civilians, said police official Manoj Kumar Shree. Officials said earlier that the attack had occurred at a paramilitary camp, which is next to the school. By midday, the entire area was inundated with heavily armed soldiers searching for surviving militants.

Kashmir has been wracked by more than two decades of separatist violence. While militant attacks have decreased dramatically in recent years, Kashmir has faced weeks of strikes and protests after the hanging of Mohammed Afzal Guru, who was executed for his involvement in a 2001 attack on India’s Parliament that killed 14 people. No-one has claimed responsibility for yesterday’s attack, though suspicion immediately fell on Muslim separatists.