Three Indian soldiers were killed and several others injured when a bomb concealed in a dead body exploded in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said Thursday.
The soldiers were on routine patrol duty when they found the body at Gualta village in the northern Uri district, which borders Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a police spokesman said.
As soldiers turned over the body to examine it, the bomb exploded, the spokesman added.
The injured were rushed to an army hospital in Uri.
Police blamed separatist Islamic militants for booby-trapping the body and triggering the explosion through a remote-control or timer device.
A large number of security personnel are deployed in Uri as the district borders the Line of Control - the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir and have fought two of their three wars over the Himayalan region.
In a similar incident in Uri, an Indian border guard was injured when he picked up an abandoned gun which blew up, the police spokesman said.
Elsewhere in Kashmir five more people died in different incidents, a police spokesman said.
An army soldier and a militant died in a gun battle in Yechgam village in the central Budgam district overnight, he said.
Three militants were shot dead by counter-insurgency troops in Bandipora town, 60 kilometers north of Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar early Thursday.
An Islamic insurgency in Indian-Kashmir has so far claimed at least 35,000 lives since 1989.
Meanwhile, police said two detained Pakistani militants -- Gazanfar Ali and Mohammed Azim -- escaped from custody overnight as they were being transported from Srinagar to the northern town of Baramulla.
The two managed to escape from the police near Patan township, 30 kilometers north of Srinagar.
Both were arrested eight years ago as members of outlawed militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen -- SRINAGAR, India (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
