SRINAGAR, Dec 2: Seven Hindus en route to a wedding were massacred on Sunday by freedom fighters in the southern mountains of occupied Kashmir, adding to 19 deaths in overnight violence, police said.

The unarmed Hindu civilians were on their way to a wedding in Udhampur district, 150 kilometres north of Jammu, when they were ambushed in a dense forest and shot at point blank range, police said.

Officials said they were awaiting further details of the attack, the second since Friday against Hindus in the same remote region.

“We are trying to confirm the report of the massacre and a police official has been sent for details,” Udhampur administrator Shailendra Kumar told AFP by telephone.

He said army and paramilitary troops had been rushed to the site in Udhampur’s Gaylot region, where on Friday night five Hindus and two Muslim civilians were gunned down by Mujahideen in police uniform.

In New Delhi, a defence ministry source told AFP that a “pro-active” plan was being put in place to quell raiders in Udhampur, home to thousands of Hindus.

Elsewhere in occupied Kashmir, 16 freedom fighters, two female civilians and an Indian army major were killed and 21 houses and a school were razed in unabated gunbattles between Indian soldiers and the Mujahideen.

The clashes occurred during search operations by the army in the northern Kashmir district of Kupwara, which borders Azad Kashmir, witnesses said.

The police spokesman in Srinagar said six freedom fighters, all local Kashmiris affiliated with Hizbul Mujahideen, were gunned down during a three-hour encounter at the village of Magam.

Senior police and others in Kupwara district rushed to Magam to check the damage and work out a relief package for the affected civilians.

Two more Mujahideen were shot dead in an adjoining village overnight, police said in Srinagar.—AFP