Indian security forces clashed Wednesday with suspected militants in three separate gunfights in Jammu and Kashmir, leaving 11 people dead. The first battle broke out when rebels opened fire on soldiers and police searching the remote mountains of the Udhampur district of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, said Colonel D K Badola, an army spokesman. The soldiers and police were cordoning off the area when the fighting began, and "after a two-hour long gunbattle, three militants and an army soldier were killed while another soldier was injured," Badola said. Elsewhere in Kashmir, two militants were killed in a separate shootout Wednesday in the Mendher region of the Poonch district, northwest of Jammu, Badola said. Two more militants were killed in a separate gunfight between militants and army soldiers also in Poonch district, he said. The police were investigating which militant groups the dead men belonged to, Badola said.
Meanwhile the police said four people, including two children, were killed on Wednesday when gunmen and soldiers exchanged fire in Indian Kashmir. The shooting took place in Doodipora village near Handwara town, 80 km north of Srinagar.