Indian troops have launched a massive hunt for Muslim separatist militants in Indian Kashmir who ambushed an army convoy killing 11 soldiers and injuring 29 others, a defense spokesman said Monday.
Three civilians and two militants involved in the ambush were also killed when the Indian army retaliated to the guerrilla attack late Sunday, the spokesman said.
Ten soldiers died on the spot when the heavily armed Islamic militants attacked the army convoy with assault rifles, machine guns and grenades, as it was travelling along the Jammu-Srinagar highway, the spokesman said.
One of the injured soldiers died early Monday in an army hospital at Udhampur, the headquarters of the Indian army's northern command.
"The condition of 10 more soldiers is serious," the spokesman said.
The Indian army, assisted by counter-insurgency police and paramilitary border guards, launched massive searches in the area where the attack took place in Ramban, 155 kilometres (96 miles) south of Kashmir's Srinagar, the summer capital.
The troops also sealed off a large stretch of the 300-kilometer (186-mile) highway connecting the summer and winter capitals of Indian Kashmir.
"More troops have been deployed on the road to prevent recurrence of such attacks," an official said.
But he said it was impossible for the security forces to man the entire stretch of the road.
"They are searching for the militants in the jungles as most of the gunfire came from a hilltop," the spokesman said, adding that the search operation would continue all day.
Indian troops were also questioning local people for clues to lead them to the militants, he added.
Witnesses said the militants, armed with assault rifles and grenades, had hidden near a bridge which forms part of the highway at Ramban.
Indian troops usually alight from their vehicles at the bridge and cross it on foot.
On Sunday, as the soldiers got out of their trucks, the militants opened fire on them from the edge of the bridge as well as from the top of a hill, catching the troops by surprise, the witnesses said.
When the soldiers retaliated, two militants and three civilians who strayed into the crossfire were killed.
The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, but said two of its cadres who carried out the ambush had managed to escape safely.
Lashkar spokesman Abu Osama also said 15 Indian soldiers had been killed and more than 40 injured in the attack -- AFP
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