Indian soldiers killed two militants after a fierce gunbattle in Kashmir’s main city yesterday, as Indian Prime minister Manmohan Singh arrived in the city to promote peace in the disputed region.

About a 1,000 Indian soldiers withdrew from a southern Kashmiri town shortly before Singh arrived as part of a move to scale back some forces in the Himalayan region.

New Delhi hopes the withdrawal will send a message of reconciliation to the Kashmiris and to old foe Pakistan, which controls a third of Kashmir. India controls nearly half.

Singh arrived at heavily guarded Srinagar airport even as soldiers were engaged in a gunbattle with rebels near a cricket stadium from where Singh was scheduled to address a public meeting later in the day.

The militants climbed a nearby hill from where they fired intermittently. Soldiers surrounded the hill and shot the two men dead.

The little-known Al-Mansooriyan militant group called newspaper offices in Srinagar, saying the two militants belonged to them. A civilian and a soldier were wounded in the gunbattle.

Hundreds of soldiers were on the streets of Srinagar, and snipers were on rooftops ahead of Singh’s arrival.

The attack came as New Delhi began a phased withdrawal of some troops from Kashmir. The first batch of soldiers, looking happy and waving their hands, moved out of Anantnag town in a convoy, a witness said. The region has been the cause of two of the three wars between the nuclear-armed India and Pakistan since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

The neighbours began a peace process last year to try to resolve the dispute and to end a 15-year-old rebellion against Indian rule of Jammu and Kashmir state in which tens of thousands of people have died. Singh announced the unprecedented cut in troops this month, citing a reduction in the infiltration of militants from the Pakistani part of Kashmir.

New Delhi-based Colonel Anil Shorey told Reuters on Tuesday the pullout would start yesterday with about 20,000 soldiers leaving Kashmir “in a phased manner”. India has never said how many troops are posted in Kashmir. Newspapers have put the number at up to half a million.

Islamabad has welcomed the reduction, which analysts say has breathed new life into the sluggish peace process. India and Pakistan last year agreed a truce along the ceasefire line that divides Kashmir after coming to the brink of war in 2002.

The main alliance of Kashmiri separatist politicians ruled out meeting the prime minister, and a hardline faction of the alliance has called for a day-long general strike yesterday, demanding that Singh apologise for what it said were atrocities committed by Indian soldiers.

“We have nothing personal against Manmohan Singh. But he is visiting Kashmir as the head of a country whose forces are brutalising Kashmir,” said hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Demonstrations

“If Manmohan Singh is a man with a good heart he should on behalf of the country apologise to Kashmiris for the excesses of the Indian forces,” he said.

Protesters staged four days of demonstrations in Kashmir last week over the alleged rape of a 10-year-old girl and her mother by an Indian soldier. The military said it was investigating the case.

Singh, state authorities said, was expected to announce a financial package worth about 40 billion rupees ($888 million) to rebuild damaged infrastructure in the state, improve basic public services and boost the local economy.

Kashmiri separatist groups and local business leaders said Singh would need to do much more than try to buy peace by offering financial incentives.

“It is to be seen whether the PM will come with a financial package or a political package. If it is just a financial package we won’t have anything to do with it,” Maulana Abbas Ansari, a senior leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Kashmir’s main political separatist alliance, told Reuters.

He said Singh should allow representatives of Kashmiris to join peace talks between India and Pakistan, make it easier for divided families in Indian and Pakistani Kashmir to meet and prevent rights abuses by Indian forces.

<B>Y. P. Rajesh</B>