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Militants kill six in Kashmir: AFP

Six Hindus were killed and six injured by suspected Muslim militants overnight in a village in the troubled northern Indian state of Kashmir, a senior police official said in Jammu.

The attack occurred Thursday evening in Koddara village in the southern Kashmir district of Rajouri, some 160 kilometres (100 miles) west of Jammu, Rajouri police superintendent Parminder Singh said.

He said at least four gunmen entered the village and opened fire with automatic weapons.

"Five people were killed on the spot and one died later in hospital," Singh said. Six people, including a five-month-old baby, were injured.

A curfew was imposed on the Hindu-dominated Rajouri town, the main town in the district, as a precaution against any communal backlash, he added.

Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, has seen an upsurge of violence since one of the largest Muslim separatist groups in Kashmir, the Hizbul Mujahideen, called off its unilateral cease-fire a week ago.

India accuses rival Pakistan of fomenting the militancy in the Indian zone of the divided Himalayan state which has claimed more than 25,000 lives in a decade.

Islamabad denies the charge but extends open moral and diplomatic support to the militants.

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