Two senior puppet ministers in occupied Kashmir narrowly escaped a landmine blast which injured six policemen while 11 people died in other violence, 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 ministers' cars were injured in the blast.
Sayeed is the head of Congress party in occupied Kashmir and Mir is from the same party. Police said two more Congress legislators were travelling in the convoy.
Meanwhile, seven Mujahideen were killed late Saturday and Sunday in three separate gun battles in the southern districts of Anantnag and Pulwama and Baramulla in the north, a police spokesman said.
"All the three clashes erupted when troops laid siege to Mujahideen hideouts on a tip-off from intelligence sources," the spokesman claimed.
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 Mujahideen and troops, while in the southern town of Tral a civilian was shot dead by suspected freedom fighters, 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 allegedly by Mujahideen in southern Udhampur district on Sunday, police said.
Police also blamed freedom fighters for killing an elderly woman in Doda district, also in south of the region.