SRINAGAR, June 23: Indian troops shot dead five freedom fighters in occupied Kashmir, three of them near the Line of Control, while 23 people were injured in a grenade attack, police said on Wednesday.

Three of the freedom fighters were killed when they entered the disputed Kashmir in Karnah sector of Kupwara district overnight, a police spokesman said here. "By killing three more militants along the Line of Control another attempt by militants to infiltrate into our side has been foiled," the police spokesman said.

Another two Kashmiri fighters were killed during an encounter with troops inside Kupwara overnight, police said. Meanwhile, 22 civilians and a policeman were injured when a grenade hurled by suspected freedom fighters at a security patrol in the Bijbehara town on Wednesday missed the target and exploded among pedestrians, police said.

"Seven of the injured are in critical condition," police said. The killings along the LoC coincided with a three-day visit to the area on Wednesday by a six-member delegation of the European Union parliamentarians.

"They have left for the LoC this morning where they will be appraised of the latest situation by field commanders," Indian army spokesman Colonel Mukhtair Singh told AFP.