SRINAGAR, India - Two senior state ministers in Indian Kashmir narrowly escaped a landmine blast which injured six policemen while 11 people died in militant violence in the revolt-wracked state, police said on Sunday.
Rural development minister Peerzada Mohammed Sayeed and roads and buildings minister Ghulam Ahmed Mir missed the blast by seconds as their convoy passed a village near the northern town of Sopore, police said. Six policemen, including a senior officer, travelling in an escort vehicle behind the ministersâ cars were injured in the blast.
Sayeed is the head of Indiaâs ruling Congress party in the state, and Mir is from the same party. Police said two more Congress legislators were travelling in the convoy.
 Meanwhile seven terrorists militants were killed late Saturday and Sunday in three separate gunbattles in the southern districts of Anantnag and Pulwama and Baramulla in the north, a police spokesman said. âAll the three clashes erupted when troops laid siege to terrorist militant hideouts on a tip-off from intelligence sources,â the spokesman said. The spokesman said large caches of arms and ammunition were recovered from the scene of the clashes.
In Baramulla a civilian died during an exchange of fire between terrorists militants and troops, while in the southern town of Tral a civilian was shot dead by suspected terrorists militants, police said.
A police officer from a bomb disposal squad was killed and another injured when they were trying to defuse a roadside bomb planted by terrorists militants in southern Udhampur district on Sunday, police said. |