Bomb Explosion, Shootouts Kill 12 in Northern India

SRINAGAR, India — Twelve people including four separatist guerrillas were killed in shootouts and a bomb explosion in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, police said Friday.

“Two BSF [Border Security Force] personnel were killed and another was wounded when a powerful bomb blast took place at Pattan this morning,” BSF spokesman Gurtej Pal said. Pattan township is 20 miles from the state’s summer capital, Srinagar.

The spokesman said no more details were available and no militant group has claimed responsibility for the explosion.

Two civilians were killed and two paramilitary personnel were wounded in a gun battle between separatist guerrillas and paramilitary forces about 10 miles west of Srinagar, police said.

They said suspected separatist guerrillas also shot dead three civilians in Arai village, while another was killed by unidentified militants at the border village of Gohallan in Uri, about 50 miles west of Srinagar.

Police added that four militants died at Alan Ghati in the Doda district.

Many Indian security agencies are fighting Kashmiri separatist guerrillas in Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state.

Separately, police said the chief of the Pan-Islamic Lashkar-e-Toiba group had been shot dead earlier this week by the State Task Force.