SRINAGAR, Nov 6: Eight people were killed in held Kashmir while the state government appealed to New Delhi not to withdraw troops fighting the insurgency, officials said on Thursday.

Police said suspected militants barged into three separate houses in the Kunzer village in Baramulla district late Wednesday and shot dead three people, including a woman working with state-owned television.

No group has claimed responsibility for the killings, which sparked panic in the area.

Another victim was a government official, police said.

Separately, troops sealed off a house on Thursday morning in Shopian, 50km south of Srinagar, and shot dead two fighters in a three-hour gunbattle, an army spokesman said.

He said troops recovered two automatic rifles and a radio set from the slain rebels.

Another rebel was shot dead by the army near the village of Busan, 35km northeast of Srinagar, late Wednesday, he said.

Two more rebels were shot dead overnight in the Rafiabad area of Baramulla district, the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Mangat Ram Sharma appealed to the federal government to put off a withdrawal planned for later this month of the Border Security Force (BSF), the main unit fighting rebels in Kashmir.

New Delhi plans to refocus the BSF on border protection and deploy the Central Reserve Police Force to put down insurgencies in Kashmir and northeastern India.

Sharma, quoted by the English-language daily Greater Kashmir, said he told Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani that the withdrawal of the BSF from counter-insurgency operations “would cause problems in fighting militancy.”

Advani also heads the home ministry which oversees both the BSF and federal police.—AFP