March 14, 2000
New Delhi - Indian security forces killed six Islamic rebels - including a top leader of a pro-Pakistan guerrilla group - in two clashes in troubled Kashmir, a news agency said Tuesday. Bambar Khan, commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen group, and two of his associates were trapped by the security forces in their village hide-out on Monday on the outskirts of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state, Press Trust of India news agency quoted police as saying. The three were killed during a fierce exchange of gunfire that lasted several hours, police said. Khan had been blamed for dozens of killings in Kashmir.
Another three guerrillas were killed in a separate exchange of gunfire with security forces in a nearby village Halnar, PTI said.
India and Pakistan each control part of Kashmir, a mountainous territory that lies between them and that each side claims in its entirety. More than 15,000 people have been killed on both sides since an insurgency erupted in Indian-held Kashmir in 1989. Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in predominantly Hindu India.
India accuses Pakistan of training and arming the insurgents. Pakistan says it provides only diplomatic and moral support to the rebels, whom it describes as freedom fighters.
