September 16, 2008	Tuesday	Ramazan 15, 1429

SRINAGAR, Sept 15: Four Indian soldiers and three suspected militants were killed in gun battles across occupied Kashmir on Monday.

Police said suspected militants also beheaded a villager suspecting him to be an informer of Indian troops.

Police said a firefight with militants broke out near the Line of Control (LoC), where four soldiers were killed and two were wounded.

Elsewhere three militants, including a senior “commander” of Kashmir’s largest militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen, were killed in two separate gunbattles with soldiers, police said.

The latest clashes came on a day when hundreds of students in Kashmir’s main university protested against Indian rule.

At least 37 protesters have been killed by government forces since last month in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, scene of some of the biggest pro-independence rallies since a revolt against New Delhi’s rule began in 1989.—Reuters