Kashmir rebels gun down 9 people

Police said six people died late Friday when gunmen stormed into houses of three families and opened fire in a southern district of Kashmir where a revolt against Indian rule has raged since 1989.

"Gunmen, believed to be militants, barged into homes of three families in the village of Darmari and opened indiscriminate fire," a police spokesman said. Six people died on the spot while eight were wounded. The victims were all men.

In other violence, three soldiers were killed and four wounded Friday when militants opened fire on a convoy just south of the state summer capital Srinagar, army spokesman Vijay Batra told AFP.

The violence came days after moderate separatists held their first peace talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi Monday.

Leading moderate separatist Mirwaiz Umar Farooq Friday launched a strong attack on separatist hardline leaders who have criticised his dialogue with New Delhi, accusing them of being "happy to see the genocide go on in Kashmir just to maintain their leadership."

While not mentioning any of the hardliners by name, Farooq who is also Kashmir's chief Muslim cleric, accused the hardliners of "compulsive antagonism" toward efforts to resolve the insurgency peacefully.

Police said they suspected militants attacked the families 230km south of Srinagar as the men worked as special police officers fighting the insurgency.

Militants routinely target families of police and others helping Indian security forces.

Rebel group Lashkar-e-Toiba, based in the Pakistani zone of the divided Himalayan region, claimed responsibility for the attack on the army in a telephone call to a local news agency.