Officer and civilians among 11 killed in Kashmir

By Ashok Pahalwan

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants who slipped across the border from Pakistan into Indian Kashmir were shot dead by security forces after they killed six people in the Hindu-majority region of Jammu on Wednesday, police said.

The three militants disguised as policemen were holed up in a house for 18 hours where they killed three of nine hostages they were holding and set booby traps, officials said.

They had earlier shot dead two civilians and an army officer, before forcing their way into the house.

"The hostage crisis is over, all three militants have been killed," police officer Manohar Singh said. One injured hostage was rushed to a hospital, but fate of the remaining hostages were not immediately known.

In central Kashmir, two protesters were killed and more than a dozen injured when troops fired on protesters who police said defied a curfew and shouted pro-independence slogans.

Protests this month have convulsed the state of Jammu and Kashmir, sparked by a land row that has led to massive pro-independence demonstrations in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley and strikes in the more peaceful Jammu region.

The crisis has strained relations between India and Pakistan, which both claim the region in full but rule in parts, damaging a tentative peace process and raising fears Kashmir could again become a hotspot between the two nuclear rivals.

Authorities in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir stopped hundreds of people from staging a protest march to the Line of Control to express solidarity with Indian Kashmiris.

Thousands have died in a two-decade old insurgency against Indian rule.

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In India's Kashmir valley, authorities have imposed a curfew this week to defuse protests by Muslim separatists.

Police on Monday killed five protesters who defied the curfew in the Kashmir valley, bringing the death toll to at least 28. The demonstrations are the biggest against Indian rule since a revolt broke out in 1989.

More than 600 people have been injured in clashes over the two weeks of protests.

Residents in the Kashmir valley said they were running short of food and essentials due to the four-day long curfew.

"There is nothing left to eat now except a little rice," Rabia Noor, a 35-year-old housewife who lives in Srinagar, told Reuters by telephone.