JAMMU, May 30: Mujahideen attacked a police post in occupied Kashmir on Wednesday night, sparking a 17-hour gunfight which left three Indian policemen and two of the freedom fighters dead.

Two more cops and two paramilitary soldiers were killed in other clashes on Wednesday.

The Mujahideen had stormed the post at Doda, 172kms north of occupied Jammu, and killed three policemen on duty.

Five more policemen were injured after the Mujahideen barricaded themselves inside a two-storey building with 250 rooms and exchanged fire with Indian soldiers, a police spokesman said.

Other fighters in nearby forests and mountains gave cover to their colleagues and then managed to escape.

After the marathon gunbattle two Mujahideen were finally shot dead by soldiers and paramilitaries, the spokesman said.

Earlier police had said a civilian had been killed, but when they recovered the body they discovered it was a plainclothes policeman. Police said they decided against an earlier plan of blowing up the building because it was “newly constructed with a huge cost”.

“To nab two militants (Mujahideen), blowing up the entire building was not worth it,” a police official said.

The raid came two weeks after three Mujahideen attacked an Indian army camp in the held state, killing 32 soldiers and their families, before they themselves were shot dead.

In a similar incident, a woman constable and a policeman were killed by the freedom fighters when they opened fire at a small police post in the Rajouri district on Wednesday.

“One policeman was critically injured in the attack,” a police spokesman said. “Indian soldiers have launched a search operation in the area.”

In a separate attack, two paramilitaries were killed on Wednesday evening by Mujahideen in Udhampur district. The soldiers belonged to India’s Border Security Force, the most dominant paramilitary unit in occupied Kashmir.

“The soldiers were ambushed by militants. The two soldiers were part of a team who were on a search mission to track down militants following a tip-off,”

a paramilitary spokesman said.—AFP