The Indian army denied Monday that Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen had killed seven Indian soldiers, including an officer, in a rocket attack on a camp in Kashmir.
The group's spokesman Salim Hashmi had told AFP in Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir, that Mujahideen fighters had fired three rockets which killed one officer and six soldiers besides destroying two barracks in Patha village in Poonch late Saturday.
"It is senseless and baseless fabrication of news. We have our company headquarters there but there was no rocket attack on our army camp," said Brigadier Randhir Sinh from the army headquarters in Jammu.
Muslim militants have rejected as a propaganda ploy a unilateral cease-fire by Indian troops in Kashmir, announced for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and extended for four weeks on Wednesday.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Wednesday also announced his government would take "exploratory steps" towards resuming a stalled dialogue with Pakistan.
A separatist campaign in the Indian-controlled zone of the divided Himalayan state has claimed more than 34,000 lives since 1989.
India accuses Pakistan of fuelling the insurgency, a charge denied by Islamabad, which says it extends only moral and diplomatic support to what it terms the Kashmiris' right to self-determination -- JAMMU (AFP)
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