Twelve people were killed in mounting violence across India's restive Jammu and Kashmir state, police said today.
Guerrillas shot dead a village defence committee member and his wife early this morning after storming their house in Rajouri district in southwestern Kashmir, a police spokesman said.
He said security forces at a nearby police post retaliated immediately and shot dead a militant.
Police in Jammu, the winter capital of the troubled state, said they had killed three rebels of the Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba.
They said the rebels were responsible for an attack on a police station in Poonch on Thursday in which six policemen and a civilian were killed.
A Jammu police official said the bodies of the Lashkar rebels were recovered after a gunbattle on the outskirts of Poonch this afternoon.
Four civilians, a militant and a member of the security forces were killed in other shootings across the region.
Separatist violence has surged in recent months particularly after last month's peace-seeking summit between India and Pakistan failed to produce any concrete results.