SRINAGAR, June 18 (2002): Eight people, including a couple, have been killed in separatist violence in India’s revolt-racked state of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said on Tuesday.

The violence in Kashmir came as tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad were easing after U.S.-led international efforts to pull them from the brink of another war over the disputed region.

Officials said the couple were shot dead in an overnight raid by unidentified militants in their home at Chadoora village on the outskirts of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

Security force have also shot dead four rebels in separate gunbattles across the region, police said.

A bullet-riddled body of a government employee was found in north Kashmir.

Also on Tuesday, Indian paramilitary soldiers shot dead a commander of Kashmir’s frontline militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen.

“Fayaz Ahmad Wani, a company commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen, was the most wanted militant in Pulwama district,” a spokesman of Border Security Force (BSF) said.

A BSF statement said he had been “assigned by Pakistani mentors to carry out anti-election movement for the forthcoming elections in Jammu and Kashmir”.

(For complete story write to admin@freepresskashmir.com)