8 die as rebels seek Kashmir conference

An army official said Indian troops shot dead four members of Kashmir's most powerful Islamic rebel group, Hizbul Mujahedin, while suspected rebels killed a public servant and his son.

"The militants were killed in two separate clashes late Thursday in the districts of Anantnag and Pulwama," army spokesman Vijay Batra told AFP.

Both districts lie south of Indian Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar and are considered strongholds of Hizbul, which wants all of Kashmir to be joined with neighbouring Pakistan.

Also Thursday, suspected militants shot dead a government official and his son in the southern district of Rajouri, police said.

Police blamed militants for two more shootings in which a village head and a Kashmiri working in the Indian army were killed in the districts of Baramulla in the north and Budgam in the southwest respectively.

None of the dozen rebel groups active in Kashmir has claimed responsibility for the four killings.

More than 44,000 people have died in an insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir since 1989, according to official figures. Separatists and Pakistan say the death toll is twice as high.

The violence has continued despite a slow-moving peace process launched by nuclear rivals India and Pakistan in January 2004 to resolve their disputes, including over Kashmir.

Meanwhile, senior separatist Yasin Malik said Friday the Kashmir dispute was heading towards a solution and he planned to call a Srinagar conference of leaders from both the Indian and Pakistani zones.

"This conference will give chance to Kashmiris to speak their minds," Malik told a rally in northern Kashmir town of Bandipora, 60km north of Srinagar.

India in the past has not allowed such conferences and observers said it was unlikely Malik would be permitted to stage a meeting.