Police said twelve people were killed in a raid on a police station in Jammu and Kashmir near the border with Pakistan on Thursday (September 26) and militants then attacked a nearby army camp where a shootout was going on.

The attack came as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif were due to meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting. They were expected to discuss the violence in the disputed Kashmir region.

The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Rajesh Kumar, said that after attacking the police station, the militants hijacked a truck and later attacked an army camp.

India has faced an insurgency in its part of Muslim-majority Kashmir since 1989 and has long accused Pakistan of supporting the militants fighting Indian rule.

Kumar said that the bid for fresh infiltration cannot be ruled out and added in totality twelve people had died.

Pakistan denies arming or training the militants, who cross the border from the Pakistani side of Kashmir into the Indian side, but says it offers moral support to the Muslim people of Kashmir who Pakistan says face rights abuses by Indian forces.

According to South Asia Terrorism Portal, which tracks violence in Kashmir, 128 people, including 44 security personnel were killed in the region this year, up to the latest attack. That compares with 117 people killed last year.

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