SRINAGAR, Jan 5: Indian security forces have killed 13 militants in 24 hours in separate gunbattles across the disputed region of Kashmir, police said on Saturday.

The dead include three militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad, one of two Pakistan-based groups New Delhi blames for an attack on India’s parliament on December 13, in which 14 people died.

Since the attack, India and Pakistan have scaled back diplomatic ties, cut cross-border transport services and massed troops along the border, raising international concerns that the nuclear-capable neighbours could go to war.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf eased fears of war at a South Asia summit on Saturday, when he shook the hand of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee saying he wanted peace. India dismissed the gesture as grandstanding.

Indian police said the three members of the Pakistan-based group were killed in a gunbattle in the Budgam district west of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

“A search operation was still going on when the last reports came in,” a police statement said on Saturday.

Late on Friday, Indian security forces shot dead five militants in Rajouri district, southwest of Srinagar, police said.

Elsewhere security forces shot dead five militants in separate shootouts in the Himalayan region, police said. Nearly a dozen guerrilla groups are fighting New Delhi’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state.

India says Pakistan arms the Muslim guerrillas and helps them infiltrate Indian-ruled Kashmir. Pakistan says it offers separatists only moral support.

India controls 45 percent of disputed Kashmir, Pakistan rules over a third and China the rest.

Authorities say more than 33,000 people have been killed in the region since a rebellion broke out in 1989. But separatists put the toll closer to 80,000.—Reuters