Srinagar: Militants Sunday killed two policemen guarding the home of a politician in Jammu and Kashmir in the first such attack in the restive region since national elections got underway, police said.
Two rebels sprayed the home of a National Conference politician with bullets in the town of Khrew, 25km south of the main city of Srinagar.
The attack sparked a gunbattle that also left both militants dead, police said.
Yawar Masoodi, a youth leader of the National Conference party that rules the Himalayan state, was home at the time but was unharmed.
“The two policemen died before reaching hospital,” a police officer at the scene.
The militants fled into nearby fields after snatching the police officers’ weapons. Government forces chased the attackers, sparking the gunbattle as reinforcements from a nearby army camp also moved in.
“Both the attackers were later neutralised and the weapons also recovered,” Inspector General Nalin Prabhat from the federal Central Reserve Police Force told AFP.
It is unclear why Masoodi, who is not an elected member of parliament nor contesteing in the polls, was singled out for attack. But pro-India politicians have been targeted in the past by rebels fighting for independence or for merger of the territory with Pakistan.
The district in the Kashmir Valley where the attack took place will go to the polls on April 24.
About a dozen rebel groups have sporadically been battling Indian forces since 1989.
