At least 19 people were killed in separatist violence and firefights between security forces and militants Monday in India’s strife-torn Jammu and Kashmir state.
Four people were killed and seven wounded when unidentified militants hurled a grenade and fired indiscriminately on a bus in Anantnag district 34 miles south of Srinagar, the state’s summer capital.
The attack came as a gun battle raged between separatists and soldiers in Jagarpora, further north.
An army spokesman said that after 24 hours of shooting an army captain, a soldier and 12 separatist guerrillas were dead and two soldiers were wounded.
A defense spokesman said counterinsurgency troops also killed two “foreign militants” near the village of Kralpora near the Pakistani border. In addition, two militants were killed in fighting in Pulawam district 32 miles south of here.
The All-Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, which bands together two dozen political, religious and separatist groups, called a one-day strike to protest the killing “in custody” of a guerrilla leader. Shops, businesses and most schools here were shut.
Police had said Ali Mohammad Dar, a leader of the banned Hizb-ul-Mujahedeen, and two associates were killed in a shootout early Sunday with police in Srinagar.
