Seven die in Kashmir gun battle

Seven people were killed in a gun battle between separatist militants and Indian soldiers in Kashmir today, police said.

The battle broke out when a group of militants fired at an army patrol in the densely forested Manjakot area of Punch district, bordering Pakistan, said an official.

The soldiers fired back and a firefight raged for at least three hours in which three militants, three soldiers and a civilian army porter were killed, he said.

Manjakot is 125 miles north-west of Jammu, the winter capital of the Himalayan province.

India accuses Pakistan of training and funding the militants, a charge Pakistan denies.

Pakistan will ”respond positively” if India withdrew its troops from the Line of Control, which divides the disputed Kashmir region, in addition to its planned pullback elsewhere along the border, a foreign ministry spokesman said today.

“We will soon withdraw all troops from the international border in response to India’s decision to move their troops,” said Aziz Ahmad Khan in Islamabad.

Khan commented after reports that India would start its troop pullback within eight to 10 days. “I have also seen this report and we welcome it,” he said.

He also urged India to withdraw its troops along the Line of Control, the cease-fire line that divides the troubled Himalayan region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan. ”We will respond positively and promptly,” Khan said.

India announced last Wednesday that it would pull tens of thousands of troops from its border with Pakistan to help reduce tensions between the two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals. Pakistan said it would follow suit.

But New Delhi said it would keep its troops along the Line of Control until infiltration by Pakistan-based Islamic separatists ends.