Rebels kill minister, guards in Indian Kashmir
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-10-18 16:00

Islamist guerrillas have gunned down Indian Kashmir's junior education minister and two policemen in an attack at his fortified home in the main city Srinagar, authorities said.

Ghulam Nabi Lone, of the People's Democratic Party, was pronounced dead on arrival at Soura Medical Institute, Dr Shabir Ahmed told AFP on Tuesday.

One of the attackers was also killed while two civilians and three security personnel were injured in the fierce gunbattle, said Gulam Hassan Khan, Social Welfare Minister and Lone's neighbour in Tulsi Bagh, an enclave housing senior politicians and bureaucrats.

"One of the militants is hiding in Lone's house or in the vicinity," Khan said in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir.

Violence by anti-India rebels has continued in Kashmir despite a massive earthquake on October 8 that killed more than 1,300 and left 5,000 injured.

The 16-year-old insurgency against Indian rule has claimed more than 44,000 lives by official count in the Himalayan region.

Provincial Finance Minister Muzaffar Baig described the killing as a "great tragedy" and said the attackers got through because state police and army soldiers were focussed on relief operations for some 150,000 homeless quake survivors.

"We have to summon all our resources and the central and the state government has to tackle these elements of terror," Baig told reporters, warning against "complacency."

"It shows that while we carry on with the peace process with Pakistan, we have to be on our guard against these elements of terror."

He accused some militants of scant respect for the peace process launched in January 2004 between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

Kashmir politicians touring their quake-ravaged constituencies would be advised to take more precautions, he added.

In New Delhi, federal Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal described the attack on Lone as a "security lapse", as militants broke into a high security zone.