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SRINAGAR, (India), Oct 18 (AFP): Islamist guerrillas Tuesday 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.
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.
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.
Meanwhile: The daily bloodshed has continued despite a ceasefire declaration in quake-hit areas last week by an umbrella group of separatists, the United Jihad Council, as some insurgents joined relief efforts.
The Indian military brass has however not reacted to the gesture. Counter-insurgency operations have continued and while the army spearheads aid work, it also says it has killed more than 30 militants since the October 8 earthquake.
Federal intelligence agencies have been working overtime to assess the damage to insurgents in and around Muzaffarabad, the militants' headquarters and the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
Army chief general J.J. Singh said the 7.6-magnitude quake wrought havoc among the militant groups, who are seeking either independence for Kashmir or absorption into Pakistan.
Over 1,300 people in Indian Kashmir were killed in the quake, but 41,000 others died in Pakistan.
"The epicentre of the quake was in Muzaffarabad and all the terrorist infrastructure in and around the city has been destroyed, with a lot of innocent lives as well," Singh said.
But he cautioned: "It is too early to say with certainty what impact it has had as the infrastructure remains intact in other areas in Pakistan."
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of training, arming and funding the Islamic rebellion, a charge Pakistan denies. It admits, however, to extending "moral, political and diplomatic support" to Kashmiri separatists.
Brigadier Madan Gopal, head of military operations in Indian Kashmir, was confident the militants' ranks had been decimated.
Yet, whatever the true picture, the violence continues.
Retired general V.N. Sharma, who was India's army chief when the insurgency erupted in 1989, is among those who reject suggestions that the quake has broken the back of the insurgency, which has claimed around 44,000 lives.
Uday Bhaskar, head of the military-funded Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis in New Delhi, also warned against complacency.
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