Twenty killed in Kashmir clashes, explosion

The paramilitary official told Reuters the bomb had beenplanted in a mule-pack and exploded at a paramilitary post near Laperi in Udhampur district, 66 km (40 miles) East of Jammu, the winter capital of the Himalayan state.

Mules are used to carry supplies to security posts in thehigh mountains and officials said it was the first time an animal had been used by militants in such a way in a decade of armed insurgency in the state.

Earlier on Friday night, two separatist militants and acivilian were killed in a clash with Indian security forces in Udhampur district, police said.

They said security forces had also shot dead five militantsin separate gunbattles in the neighbouring district of Poonch since Friday evening.

In another gunbattle on Friday, Indian soldiers killed threemilitants near the Pakistan border in Kupwara district, 87 km (54 miles) northeast of Srinagar.

Two militants and five civilians have been killed inshootouts across the state since Friday evening, police said.

The state’s junior home minister recently said 2,575 peoplehave been killed in separatist violence in the state since January this year. The number of dead is the highest in four years.

India, which controls 45 percent of Kashmir, accusesPakistan of arming and training Kashmiri separatists, a charge Islamabad denies. Pakistan rules over a third of Kashmir and China the rest.

Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting Indian rule inKashmir, where police and hospitals say more than 30,000 people have been killed in separatist violence since 1990.