Posted on 03/14/2003 10:13:08 AM PST by swarthyguy
SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Seven people, including three civilians and a rebel, were killed on Friday in a fierce gun battle with suspected separatists who were holed up in a hotel in Indian Kashmir, police said. The three dead civilians were trapped inside the three-story hotel when the gunbattle erupted in Poonch near a cease-fire line dividing Indian and Pakistan Kashmir, a police official said.
During the clash, in which three security men also died and nine people were wounded, police fired a rocket at the hotel, damaging part of the building.
"We have three civilians dead who were inside the hotel apart from the other dead," the official told Reuters in Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state. The town of Poonch lies some 168 miles southwest of Srinagar.
Security forces in Indian Kashmir have been battling Muslim separatist guerrillas since 1989.
A witness said the gun battle began after seven rebels spied a security patrol and bolted into the hotel and the two sides then started firing.
Police, who cordoned off the hotel, said they had found one dead militant inside and did not know if others had fled.
India accuses Muslim Pakistan of stoking the 14-year revolt by arming rebels and sending them into Indian Kashmir.
The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947 and came to the brink of another over Muslim-majority Kashmir last year.
Pakistan denies arming and training the rebels but says it offers moral support to what it calls a legitimate freedom struggle by the people of Kashmir.
Earlier CNN Report
Fierce siege at Kashmir hotel Friday, March 14, 2003 Posted: 9:18 AM EST (1418 GMT)
POONCH, Indian-controlled Kashmir -- Three policemen and a militant have been killed in a fierce gun battle in Indian-controlled Kashmir as authorities tried to free civilians trapped in a hotel where the gunmen were holed up, police say.
At least one civilian was wounded in Friday's fighting in the town of Poonch, 220 kilometers (135 miles) northwest of the city of Jammu.
A senior police official told CNN the firing was "very intense," triggering tension in Poonch, which is close to the Line of Control that divides Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.
P.L. Gupta, Inspector General of Police in the Jammu region, said his force is trying to evacuate the civilians from Anand Hotel, located in the heart of the Poonch market.
Police sources also say the Indian army has been called out to assist the police, who are reportedly coming under automatic weapons fire.
At least three militants are thought to be in the hotel. It's not clear how many civilians are inside.
Elsewhere in Jammu-Kashmir state, Indian forces killed five Muslim guerrillas in two encounters Friday, the Associated Press reported.
Three rebels were killed in a gun battle in Kokernag, 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Srinagar.
Two were killed when troops attacked their border hideout, 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the city, police said.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the Muslim insurgents. Pakistan says it provides moral and diplomatic support -- but not weapons -- to the guerrillas, describing them as freedom fighters.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two over Kashmir, since their independence from Britain in 1947.
-- Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar and Ram Ramgopal in Delhi contributed to this report
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