The commander Abu Assadullah, alias Janbaz, was killed during an encounter that lasted 21 hours in the village of Batkote, in northern Kupwara district. Police said the dead commander was an ally of the hardline militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba which wants Kashmir to secede from India and join with neighbouring Pakistan. "Janbaz is a Pakistani national," a police spokesman said. Lashkar has been in the forefront of launching suicide attacks in Kashmir, since the group launched first such assaults on July 13, 1999.Separately, a raid on a rebel hideout in northern Baramulla district led to Indian troops recovering 123 grenades and 24 land and anti-personnel mines, besides explosives and other arms and ammunition, police said. In the summer capital Srinagar, four civilians and two policemen were injured in a grenade attack by suspected militants Wednesday evening, a police spokesman said.
Also in Srinagar police prevented separatists from handing over a memorandum to a small UN office in Kashmir, police and witnesses said. "The memorandum was to urge the UN to implement UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir passed on January 5, 1948," an activists from hardline faction of region's main separatist alliance said.