SRINAGAR, Sept 22: Fourteen freedom fighters and two civilians were killed in separatist violence in Kashmir and a soldier died in a clash with Pakistani troops on Line of Control, police said on Monday.

Soldiers ambushed 10 rebels in the southern Poonch district near the border, killing five of them, a police spokesman said.

Late Sunday two rebels were killed by troops and a civilian died in the crossfire in the Surankote area of the Poonch, a police spokesman said in Srinagar, the summer capital.

Indian troops killed five more rebels in the northwestern district of Kupwara overnight, police said.

Four of them were shot dead during a six-hour long encounter in the dense jungles of Gulgam, police said, claiming that they belonged to Jaish-i-Mohammad.

Two rebels were killed elsewhere, police said.

Police said suspected Muslim militants shot dead a Muslim from the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in Anantnag, 50km south of Srinagar, the summer capital.

At least 282 people have been killed in the disputed territory in surging violence since Aug 30, when troops killed top Jaish commander Ghazi Baba in a raid in Srinagar.

Police, meanwhile, claimed that Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged fire for several hours overnight on their shared frontiers in the Uri sector of the northwestern Baramulla district.

“An army soldier manning a picket was killed when Pakistani troops shelled it,” the spokesman said.

In similar military exchanges on Saturday elsewhere in Baramulla, three civilians were killed and three others injured, according to police.—AFP