OCCUPIED SRINAGAR, March 7: Indian troops shot dead a top Kashmiri freedom fighter on Wednesday in a fierce gun battle near a forest, police said, making him the third leading militant killed by security forces over the last week.

Abu Shaheen, who police believe is chief of the banned militant group, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, was killed along with another militant jointly by army and police in Kupwara district some87kms (55 miles) north of Srinagar.

Three soldiers, including an officer, were wounded in the fire fight, police said.

Last week security forces shot dead a senior member of Lashkar-i-Taiba, a militant group accused of masterminding the massacre of 35 Hindus in Kashmir last year.

Two days later a senior commander of Kashmir's frontline militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen, was shot dead in the region.

Violence between freedom fighters and Indian troops has steadily decreased in Kashmir since India and Pakistan began a peace process in 2004.

But people are still killed in daily shootouts and occasional bomb attacks.

Officials say more than 40,000 people have been killed since an armed revolt against the Indian rule broke out in Indian occupied Kashmir in 1989. Human rights groups put the toll at about 60,000 dead or missing.— Reuters