SRINAGAR, July 27: Fourteen civilians were hurt in a grenade blast on Sunday in occupied Kashmir as five people died in freedom-related violence and six were killed when Indian and Pakistani troops traded fire, officials said.

Freedom fighters hurled a hand grenade at a security patrol at the main market of Kokernag 70 kilometres south of Srinagar, but missed their target and it exploded among civilians, injuring 14, a police spokesman said.

The explosion sparked panic in the Kokernag garden, where several thousand local residents and tourists from India were relaxing at the popular picnic spot.

Four Mujahideen, meanwhile, were shot dead by Indian security forces in the Khumriyal area of the northwestern Kupwara district.

He said the gunbattle erupted as Indian forces searched the area on a tipoff.

Indian and Pakistani troops shelled each other’s positions with mortars for six hours on Sunday at Krishna Ghati in the southern Poonch sector, killing a civilian and damaging six residences on the Indian side, a defence ministry official said.

He said an Indian paramilitary soldier also died on Sunday of wounds suffered in a similar incident on the frontier a day earlier.

Pakistani police from across the border say five people including a 60 year old woman and three teenage boys were killed on Sunday by shelling from the Indian side.—AFP