JAMMU, April 14: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Wednesday flew into occupied Jammu to address a poll rally, hours after 25 people were injured in a grenade attack and Indian soldiers killed three militants. Some 7,000 supporters waited for the 79-year-old prime minister in a zone cordoned off to thwart possible attacks.

Earlier in the day, militants carried out a grenade attack on an election rally being held by the Congress party in Banihal town, some 200 kilometres north of Jammu, in which 25 people were injured. The Banihal attack came just hours after Indian troops claimed killing a commander of the Lashkar-i-Taiba in a firefight on the outskirts of Srinagar.

Indian army brigadier A.K. Choudhary identified the commander as a Pakistani national Abu Kasha and alleged he had been behind a string of recent attacks on election rallies in occupied Kashmir. In another incident on Wednesday, Indian troops shot dead two suspected guerillas in the district of Surankot, some 230 kilometres northwest of Jammu, police said. -AFP