SRINIGAR, Jan 15: Clashes left five people dead in occupied Kashmir at the weekend, police said on Sunday. Indian troops shot dead a member of the Hizbul Mujahideen on Sunday, police said, adding that suspected militants had killed a contractor in the district of Anantnag.

Two members of the Lashkar-i-Toiba group, named Abu Bilal and Abu Saqui, had been killed during a 12-hour gunbattle in southern Poonch district, a police spokesman said. Another Lashkar man, Abu Maaz, had been killed on Saturday during a shootout in Doda district.

Police also said they had on Sunday arrested two suspected militants — Abdul Waheed, a municipal councillor, and Wahid Ahmed — for plotting to kill former chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.

“The two had planned suicide attacks ... with an aim to assassinate Sayeed last year,” senior police officer Muneer Khan told reporters. A Chinese-made pistol had been recovered from Waheed, who had also confessed to ferrying militants and arms inside Kashmir.

Mr Khan said Waheed was arrested by the army as a militant in the 1990s but after his release became a member of Sayeed’s party and was elected as councillor in a district of occupied Kashmir.

ACCIDENTS: Six people were killed in two separate accidents on Sunday when trains rammed into a jeep and an autorickshaw at unmanned railway crossings in India, police and reports said.