[Pak Daily Times] Indian government forces killed three suspected rebels in held-Kashmire overnight following a lengthy gunbattle near the Line of Control, police said Tuesday.The three were killed after heavy firing erupted between security forces and rebels on Monday afternoon at Handwara, a village in a forest 90 kilometres from the state's main city of Srinagar, a local officer said. Four officers from the police special operations group were maimed in the gunbattle that broke out near the heavily militarised border.
"We had specific inputs about the presence of three snuffies in the area. All three were killed in the encounter," Inspector General of Police Abdul Gani Mir told AFP. The deaths come after suspected snuffies rubbed out a counter-insurgency police officer who was on patrol at a market just outside Srinagar on Monday. Tuesday's incident follows weeks of sporadic firing across the disputed frontier, which has been among the heaviest since a ceasefire agreement in 2003.