Kashmir policeman and two militants killed in gunfight

Two militants and a policeman died in a gunfight in Indian-administered Kashmir on Monday, as strikes in and around the city of Srinagar are being held to protest the deaths of two people last week.

Kishore Prasad, a paramilitary spokesman, said militants attacked police and soldiers who had surrounded their house in southern Kashmir's Mandoora village, according to the Associated Press.

On Sunday, soldiers killed one person when they fired on stone-throwing demonstrators who had been protesting the previous shooting of a 17-year-old Irfan Ahmed Ganai, killed late Saturday night during a military operation against suspected militants.

The military says it's investigating both cases.

Shops, schools and businesses in Srinagar were shut down on Monday for a one-day protest against the killings.

Kashmir, claimed by Pakistan and ruled by India, has suffered an armed insurgency that began around 1989 and has killed about 68,000 people. Violence has declined since the 1990s, but the issues that caused the conflict have not been solved.  

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