SRINAGAR, Aug 26: Eight people were killed in the latest violence in Kashmir, officials said on Friday as a senior separatist said he planned to call a conference of leaders from both sides of the divided state.

An army official said Indian troops shot dead four members of Kashmir’s most powerful Islamic rebel group, Hizbul Mujahedin, while suspected rebels killed a public servant and his son.

“The militants were killed in two separate clashes late Thursday in the districts of Anantnag and Pulwama,” army spokesman Vijay Batra told AFP.

Both districts lie south of Indian Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar and are considered strongholds of Hizbul, which wants all of Kashmir to be joined with neighbouring Pakistan.

Also on Thursday, suspected militants shot dead a government official and his son in the southern district of Rajouri, police said.—AFP