Four Muslim separatists and two Indian security personnel were killed Wednesday in clashes in Indian-ruled Kashmir, police said.
Four Muslim militants and a member of the police counter-insurgency wing were killed in a fierce encounter near Shopian township, 60 kilometers (35 miles) south of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital.
The clash lasted four hours, ending in the late afternoon, a police spokesman told AFP.
Also Wednesday, an Indian soldier was killed and another injured when militants ambushed their patrol with AK rifles and grenades at Bonaqot village, on the outskirts of Bandipora, 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of Srinagar.
Kashmiri militant groups have vowed to intensify attacks in Kashmir following the failure Monday of an India-Pakistan summit to agree on sustained negotiations over the divided territory.
Meanwhile, Kashmiris whose family members have "disappeared" after their arrest by Indian security forces over the past 10 years on Wednesday laid the foundation stone for a center in their memory.
The center, which will house a library and a stone wall bearing the names of all the "disappeared", is being built near Srinagar's "martyrs graveyard".
The foundation stone was laid by three Kashmiri boys aged between five and eight whose fathers had disappeared before their birth.
Human rights groups have listed 500 cases of Kashmiris who have vanished after their arrest by the security forces.
At least 35,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since Muslim separatists launched an insurgency in 1989 -- SRINAGAR, India (AFP)
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