Suspected freedom fighters gunned down 12 villagers while two suspected freedom fighters and a soldier died in a shootout near a mosque in occupied Kashmir on Saturday.
A police spokesman said the attack on the villagers took place late Friday in Marh village near Surankote in the border district of Poonch.
He said suspected freedom fighters barged into houses and opened fire indiscriminately at those inside, killing 12 people and wounding 10 others. Among the victims were a woman and a child.
Most of those killed and injured were members of the local village defence committee, a voluntary group armed by the occupied Kashmir government who work with police to protect villagers from attacks in the ongoing freedom movement.
Five of the wounded are in a critical condition and have been moved to occupied Jammu for treatment.
The attack came hours after the bodies of an Indian railway engineer and his brother who were abducted for ransom three days earlier were recovered from a field in Pulwama district, police said. Engineer Sudhir Kumar and his brother were found with their throats cut and hands and legs tied by rope, police said.
In a follow-up operation on Saturday, troops raided the village of Litter near where the abductions took place, sending a small group of suspected freedom fighters fleeing to a mosque, police said.
"When they cordoned off Litter village a few militants rushed into a mosque and started firing at the advancing troops from there," a police spokesman said.
He said the security forces did not return the fire for fear of harming some 60 women and men trapped inside a shrine adjoining the mosque.
"The worshippers came out when rebels (fled to) a residential house from the mosque," the officer said.
In the ensuing gunfight, two suspected freedom fighters and a soldier died, he added.
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