JAMMU, Sept 3: Two Indian policemen were among eight people killed in occupied Kashmir on Wednesday.

The two policemen were killed and three were wounded when a remote-controlled bomb exploded as their convoy passed by in the mountainous Doda area, officials said.

The Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the blast.

Elsewhere, Indian soldiers and police were engaged in a clash with seven militants as night fell across a rugged area near the Line of Control. The battle began on Tuesday afternoon.

At least seven Indian soldiers and a village defence committee official have been wounded in the fighting. The militants had been surrounded and the area cordoned off, police claimed.

Police said five militants and a civilian were killed in separate clashes across the held state. Three soldiers were wounded when militants fired on an army patrol in the Panzla area, north of Srinagar, they said.

In Kolkata, police said they had seized a truckload of 25,000 AK-47 rifle rounds bound for Srinagar.

The truck had come from India’s remote northeast, where arms and drugs smuggling is rife in a region bounded by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan. —Reuters