BSF battling Kashmir militants starts pullout

The Border Security Force (BSF), which has battled the rebellion since its outbreak in 1989, is being moved out of counter-insurgency operations as part of an Indian policy to reorient it as a dedicated border force.

"The pull-out has started and in the first phase BSF will move out from the areas north of the river Jehlum in Srinagar," a senior BSF officer told AFP.

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"It will take us 15 to 20 more days to complete the first-phase pull-out from parts of Srinagar," he said.

As the BSF troops turn their focus on the volatile de facto border with Pakistan in Kashmir, the drive against rebels will be taken over by the Central Reserve Police Force.

Battalions of the federal police, once primarily a reserve force, have begun arriving in Srinagar, official sources said.

The BSF officer said the border force was handing over information to the federal police, "even the sources and informers".

"They will also be provided information about the militants present in the area and their sympathisers," he said.

The pull-out started despite appeals against it by the provincial government, which said the withdrawal of the BSF would set back operations at a time of surging violence.

Eight people died in the latest attacks.

Suspected rebels overnight shot dead ruling party member Mohammad Ismail after barging into his house in Laripora near Pahalgam, 100km south of Srinagar, police said.

Ismail was the seventh worker from a party supporting Indian rule -- and the fourth from the ruling People's Democratic Party -- to be killed since the government marked a year in power on November 2.

Three troops were killed, two of them in an overnight ambush in the southern Rajouri district, police said.

Suspected militants also killed four civilians including a Muslim man, Imtiaz Ahmed, who died in a grenade attack on his house in Inderwan village near Gandherbal, 35km northeast of Srinagar.

Ahmed's father, who escaped the attack, was head of the village.

Rebels have frequently targeted village chiefs in the course of the 14-year insurgency, which has left 39,500 people dead, according to official figures.

Separatists put the toll at between 80,000 and 100,000.