SRINAGAR, March 11: Thirteen people were killed in the latest violence in Kashmir, four of them when two guerillas holed up inside a girls' school traded fire with Indian troops after attacking an army camp, officials claimed on Thursday.
The guerilla pair allowed all 173 students and 10 teachers to leave the government-run school in central Pulwama district ahead of a day-long duel with troops in which both militants were killed, police and the army said.
"The two were killed when they came out of the school and tried to enter another building," a local police officer said. A woman who was in the vicinity was shot dead in the crossfire, he said.
An army spokesman said the two guerillas had barricaded themselves in the high school after shooting two soldiers but had failed to penetrate the nearby Core Battle School, which trains troops to fight in the insurgency that has stretched for 15 years in Kashmir.
One of the soldiers who had been shot died at an army hospital, where the other remained in critical condition, the spokesman, Colonel Mukhtair Singh, said. "The firing has stopped but security forces are still searching the area around the school in case any other militants are present," Mr Singh said.
Jaish-i-Mohammad, a rebel outfit formed in Pakistan but banned there in a 2002 crackdown on extremism, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to Kashmir media.
Ten other people died in violence elsewhere in occupied Kashmir. Suspected guerillas shot dead an activist of the state's ruling People's Democratic Party in Pulwama district, while two army soldiers and two guerillas died in a gunfight in northern Barmulla district, police said.-AFP
