Troops kill seven militants

Guwahati: Indian forces ambushed and killed seven militants from Bangladesh who planned to carry out attacks in India, the Defence Ministry said on Friday.

The militants belonged to the Bangladeshi group Harkat-ul-Jehad-i-Islami and had infiltrated into India's Assam state, the ministry said in a statement. Abdul Karim, the top official at Bangladesh's Home Ministry, declined to comment until he had received details of the incident.

India has blamed Harkat-ul-Jehad-i-Islami for a series of bombings in India, but Bangladesh has repeatedly denied the involvement of any of its citizens.

Indian intelligence agents had been tracking the seven men using cell phone intercepts and they were caught just before dawn yesterday about 50 miles inside India's porous border with Bangladesh, the statement said.

One Indian soldier was wounded, it said. "Seven automatic pistols, three radio sets, a large quantity of explosives, mainly gelatin and detonators, were recovered," it said.