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Indian troops shot dead twelve Islamic militants in gunbattles Monday in Indian-administered Kashmir, in the wake of a major attack on a police post, officials said.

Rebels, meanwhile, shot dead an alleged security force informer, three policemen, an army soldier and detonated two bombs, injuring two people, they said.

Security forces overnight gunned down six militants near Baderwah town of southern Doda district, 220 kilometers (137 miles) south of the state's summer capital Srinagar, a defence ministry spokesman said.

"Troops cordoned off the area after a tip-off that there was a militant hideout. The militants opened fire and six of them were killed in the encounter," the spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Bhamwar Singh Rathore, said in the winter capital Jammu.

He said the slain militants were identified as members of Hizbul Mujahedin, the largest group fighting to end Indian rule in Kashmir and bring the province under Pakistani rule.

Four more militants were shot dead by Indian army soldiers near the northern township of Handwara, 85 kilometres (53 miles) north of Srinagar on Monday evening, an army spokesman said.

An army soldier also died in the encounter, he added.

Hizbul Mujahedin claimed responsibility for destroying a police post Sunday in the southern district of Udhampur, killing 11 people, in the deadliest attack this year in Kashmir.

The group said the attack was in retaliation for the killing of its district commander in the area.

On Monday police recovered bodies of two of the four policemen abducted by Hizbul men from the post they stormed, police said, taking the toll of those killed in the attack to 13.

Two other policemen were set free earlier.

Security forces were Monday searching the forest near the demolished police post at Gool to find the culprits.

Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed said the attack on the police post was aimed at derailing his government's peace initiative.

"The enemy within and across the border have stepped up their planned effort with obvious designs to derail our peace initiative by targeting police personnel and innocent civilians," Sayeed said in a statement.

He termed the militant storming of a police post as "gruesome."

Sayeed declared that his government would deal with such elements with an iron hand.

"We are equally determined to continue our sincere efforts for the restoration of peace by winning the minds and hearts of the people," he said.

In a separate incident early Monday, two Muslim militants were killed in the southern Anantnag district in "retaliatory firing" by security forces, a police spokesman said.

"The fighting erupted when militants hiding in an under-construction structure opened fire at an army patrol injuring two soldiers," he said.

Police said suspected militants shot dead an alleged security force informer and a policeman in the village of Chakepohru in southern Pulwama district Monday afternoon.

Both the victims were Kashmiri Sikhs.

A policeman and a taxi-driver were injured in a bomb explosion at Bijbehara township, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of here, also on Monday, police said.

Kashmir's police chief, Ashok Kumar Suri, says the surge of violence in recent days has been aided by the melting of snows along the frontier, which have allowed rebels to cross more easily.

Pakistan says it provides only moral and diplomatic support to the 14-year anti-Indian rebellion in Kashmir. India and Pakistan, which both have nuclear weapons, have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.

The insurgency has left 37,500 people dead since 1989, according to Indian security forces; separatist groups and Pakistan put the death toll at twice as high.

Sayeed's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and India's main opposition Congress swept the long-ruling National Conference from power during September-October elections.

Sayeed has vowed to restore normalcy in Kashmir by striving for an unconditional dialogue between separatists and New Delhi.

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