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Thirteen Die in India-Occupied Kashmir, Troops Assault Journalists
SRINAGAR, India, Aug 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - At least 13 people, including 11 Muslim activists, were killed in overnight violence in Kashmir, officials said, as a grenade attack Saturday on a commercial district of Srinagar triggered panic.
Two activists from the Hizbul Mujahideen group were killed late Friday by security forces at Berwa town, 18 miles northwest of Kashmir's summer capital of Srinagar, while another was shot dead in the northern district of Baramulla, a police spokesman said on Saturday.
Two more individuals were gunned down near the township of Banihal, he said, adding that the slain men belonged to a "suicide squad" of the formidable Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamic resistance force.
Indian soldiers shot dead six more activists, as an Indian soldier and a civilian died in three separate clashes elsewhere in the Indian-administered Himalayan state since late Friday, the spokesman said.
Panic, meanwhile, gripped the Srinagar commercial district of Hari Singh High Street Saturday when unknown attackers hurled a hand grenade at troops patrolling the bustling area, witnesses said.
Four border guards and five civilians were injured in the explosion, prompting fire from Indian troops. In their hunt for the attackers, soldiers beat up shoppers and office-goers in the area, witnesses said.
Paramilitary soldiers stormed into the office of Kashmir's most-known Urdu language weekly magazine, "Chattan", and beat up journalists, including the owner and chief editor, Tahir Mohiudin.
"They beat me up with rifle butts," Mohiudin told AFP.
Meanwhile, Indian forces across Kashmir stepped up massive operations ahead of Indian Independence Day on August 15th.
Soldiers have set up barricades around Bakshi Stadium, the venue for the official celebrations set for Wednesday in Srinagar.
Around a dozen groups in Kashmir celebrate Pakistan's independence day on August 14th by hoisting Pakistani flags. They observe India's independence day as "black day".
Activists traditionally intensify their attacks here ahead of August 15th, and in the past have launched rocket attacks against venues used for official celebrations.
Kashmiris desiring the right to determine their own future launched an uprising against Indian rule in 1989, and the ensuing decade of battling has cost over 35,000 lives.
Pakistan, which puts the death toll in Kashmir as high as 70,000, has been accused by India of backing and participating in "cross-border terrorism", but the Muslim-majority nation claims it gives only moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri right to self-determination.
Pakistan and India have fought two of three wars over Kashmir.
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