Indian police killed in Kashmir attack

Officers and civilians among 12 killed after armed men raided police station, before attacking nearby army camp.

Kashmir
About 128 people, including 44 security personnel, have been killed this year in attacks in Indian Kashmir [EPA]

At least 12 people, including four policemen and an army officer, have been killed after suspected separatist fighters raided a police station in the Indian-administered region of Kashmir, before attacking a nearby army camp, police have said.

Security forces fought the attackers at the army camp on Thursday in the Jammu region, Ashok Prasad, a senior police officer, said.

Five other soldiers have been critically wounded in the clashes, he said.

In the first attack, three assailants dressed in Indian army uniforms opened fire at a police station, according to authorities.

The attackers then hijacked a truck to escape, using it to reach an army camp about 25km away.

“They abandoned the truck on the national highway and perhaps took another vehicle and carried out an attack on the army camp in Samba,” Rajesh Kumar, a senior police official in the area, said.

Television footage showed police officials taking positions and firing from just outside the camp’s walls and closing the main gate. Wounded policemen were being lifted out.

No rebel group has claimed responsibility for the attacks..

The region where the unrest occured is nearly 350km south of Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir.

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in its entirety, and armed groups in the region have been fighting Indian rule since 1989.

Source: Al Jazeera