OCCUPIED SRINAGAR: Clashes between freedom fighters and government forces as well as street killings left six more dead in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) on Saturday, officials said, as the disputed Himalayan region battles a worsening wave of violence.
At least 28 people, including nine civilians, have been gunned down in the past two weeks - the victims of a deadly resurgence in a three-decade-old insurgency in the Muslim-majority region, which is also claimed by Pakistan.
Saturday saw two fighters from The Resistance Front (TRF) group killed outside the main city of Srinagar, police inspector general Vijay Kumar said.
One of them was top commander Umer Mushtaq Khanday, Kumar added.
Hours later, gunmen shot dead a street vendor and a labourer from outside Kashmir in separate shootings, police said.
Five fighters martyred as violence escalates in IIOJK
Two soldiers also died in a "fierce firefight" near the highly militarised ceasefire line, a military statement said.
They had been involved in a week-long hunt for fighters that had already seen seven troops killed in the forested border area of Mendhar.
TRF has claimed seven earlier targeted killings, including three Hindu men and a Sikh woman.
More than 1,000 people suspected to have links with banned religious and militant groups have been detained in a crackdown as part of the investigation into the civilian killings, a police officer told AFP on Saturday.
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