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Six die in Kashmir hotel firefight
NEW DELHI, India -- A fierce all-night gunbattle between police and Muslim militants has ended in six deaths and the fiery destruction of the Srinagar hotel where the guerrillas were holed up. Four militants and two civilians died in the action in the Indian-controlled Kashmir city, which ended at daybreak on Thursday, after authorities stormed the hotel. Another nine people were wounded, including a senior paramilitary official. An offshoot of the Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba has claimed responsibility for the attack. According to K. Srinavas, an inspector general with India's Border Security Forces, one of the dead was a former militant who had recently been assisting the Indian forces. His two bodyguards also died in the confrontation. The action coincided with a visit to Srinagar by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and struck around 5 kilometers (3 miles) from where the leader was staying. Vajpayee was in the Kashmiri capital for a meeting with top administrators from 35 Indian states. While Indian authorities have fought separatist Muslim rebels for years in Kashmir, police said a shootout in the middle of Srinagar was a highly unusual event. Militants threw between 20 and 30 grenades at security forces, who responded by evacuating 20 civilians from the hotel before shelling and storming the facility, Al Mansoor, a separatist group with close ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba, said it had staged the attack in phone calls to journalists. "We are not impressed by the prime minister's visit ... violence still continues here." Lashkar-e-Taiba is suspected of being behind Monday's car bombings in Mumbai that killed 52 people and wounded more than 150 others. Also in Kashmir, police said suspected Islamic militants hurled a grenade at an army convoy near Arwani, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Srinagar, killing one civilian and wounding another. Militants were also suspected of planting an improvised explosive device on a highway in Sogam about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Srinagar. The bomb exploded, police said, but there were no injuries. More than a dozen guerrilla groups have been fighting since 1989 for Muslim-majority Kashmir's independence from predominantly Hindu India or its merger with mostly Muslim Pakistan. More than 63,000 people have died in the conflict. -- From CNN Producer Suhasini Haidar
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