Attempt on deputy CM in Kashmir: 3 killed

Mangat Ram Sharma and two other state ministers escaped the apparent assassination bid, a police spokesman said in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir.

Some 20 other people were injured in the blast, which occurred in the town of Kopran in southern Anantnag district, some 50 kilometres (31 miles) south of Srinagar. The attack occurred around 3:50 pm (1020 GMT).

Meanwhile, suspected Islamic militants shot dead a Muslim couple in Indian Kashmir while counter-insurgency troops killed three rebels in two separate encounters, police said yesterday.

Suspected rebels overnight burst into the house of former militant Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh and shot him dead along with his 35-year-old wife Hameeda Begum near Shopian town, 50km south of the summer capital Srinagar, a police spokesman said.

Their five-year-old daughter sustained serious injuries in the shoot-out, he said.

"Sheikh was suspected (by the rebels) of working with the counter-insurgency police," the spokesman said.