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At least four persons, including three security personnel, were killed and four others wounded when two militants stormed a heavily guarded camp of the paramilitary Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) guarding the Jawahar tunnel, on the highway connecting the Kashmir valley with Jammu.
Police sources in Srinagar said the militants attacked the camp in the wee hours of Sunday morning with grenades and assault rifles.
"They later sneaked inside the camp and hurled several grenades inside a barrack and then began firing indiscriminately," said a senior police officer.
He said two members of the India Reserve Police (IRP) and an ITBP soldier died on the spot. One civilian also died in the crossfire, he added.
Three other ITBP soldiers and a cop who received serious injuries in the attack were rushed to hospital for treatment.
The tunnel was immediately closed for traffic and security personnel cordoned off the area while army and ITBP personnel mounted a joint search operation.
However, sources said no one was arrested.
A spokesman militant outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba Abu Osama called newspaper offices in Srinagar to claim responsibility for the attack. He identified the two militants as Abu Abdul Rahman Kashmiri and Abu Rafay and claimed that both had managed to escape.
This is the second attack on the highway in past one week.
On November 18, a Lashkar-e-Tayiba attack left 15 soldiers dead and 29 others injured.
Security on the highway had been beefed up following the attack.
A report from Bandipore in the northern Baramulla district said two army soldiers and a militant died on Saturday in a fierce encounter at village Reshipora.
One soldier received serious injuries in the encounter and was shifted to a hospital, police said.
During the encounter, 13 houses were destroyed by a devastating fire. Fire tenders rushed to the spot to control the blaze.
One militant and a civilian died in another gun battle at village Threeru Ganderbal near Srinagar.
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