In a day-long gunbattle that stretched till the night except, the security forces killed two of the three militants holed up in the residential building in Chinore in a crowded area on the city's outskirts, 20 kms from the international border.

The children are aged between three and nine years while the other three hostages were women that included their mother, police said.

One militant was killed in the early stage of the encounter that began around 7 AM today, Police said. The second militant was eliminated in the evening after a three-hour lull in exchange of fire, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Jammu K Rajendra told reporters.

All the hostages are believed to be safe and Security forces are working out strategies to neutralise the third militant holed up and rescue the hostages without any threat to their lives, he addeed. Barbed wire fencing has also been erected in the area around the house.

IGP Kuldip Khoda said the second militant was killed while he was trying to escape under the cover of darkness.

Police said two civilians, a jawan identified as Havildar Vijay Kumar and a JCO Naik Subedar VVK Paarkashan were killed by the militants. Six people were also injured. Earlier reports said three civilians were killed.

The militants, who were suspected by police to be the same people who had infiltrated across the border under a cover of firing by Pakistani forces, first came in a goods carrier and attacked an army checkpost in the Domana-Mishriwala area on Jammu-Akhnoor-Poonch highway this morning.

After gunning down Paarkashan and Vijay Kumar and an ex-serviceman Naseeb Singh, the militants in khaki uniform hijacked an autorickshaw and took refuge in a house belonging to a man identified as Billu Ram but not before resorting to indiscriminate firing in which a fourth person was killed. Three jawans were also injured, an Army spokesman said.

Police said one woman was earlier rescued from the house.

Officials said security personnel have also taken up positions on the roof of the residential building.

Police said efforts to rescue hostages were being hampered because there there was only one entrance on the ground floor of the residential building.

The operation to flush out the militants was being planned in such a way to to avoid any civilian casualties, officials said.

Jammu and Kashmir IGP K Rajendra said the militants were suspected to be the same three to four infiltrators who had sneaked into Jammu through Kanachak border after cutting through a wired fence.

A group of three to four militants had yesterday sneaked into Indian territory after cutting the border fencing under a cover of firing from the Pakistani side in Lalyal- Kanachak area of Jammu district following which BSF launched a massive operation.

The militants, who used a load carrier and tempo to enter into Jammu city from the border belt after infiltration opened indiscriminate firing on the security checkpost. (PTI)

Singur: The Singur standoff deepened on Wednesday with Trinamool Congress ruling out any compromise with West Bengal Government and the Tatas proposing to set up its small car plant here and threatening to intensify the agitation against the project. As the indefinite dharna by TC before the Tata Motors project entered the fourth day, there was violence at the site with the party activists assaulting some labourers on way to work at an ancillary unit.

Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee said there was no question of compromise with West Bengal government or the Tata on Singur issue. (PTI)

Bhubaneswar: Mobs defied curfew, blocked roads and attacked churches on Wednesday in Orissa's Kandhamal district even after police issued shoot-at-sight orders to control the situation erupting out of the killing of a Hindu leader on Saturday.

Officials said the trouble spread to other areas of the state with stray incidents of violence reported in Sundergarh, Gajapati and Rayaagada districts.

The state has been on the boil since the killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a member of the central advisory committee of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and four others Saturday evening by suspected Maoist guerrillas at his Jalespata ashram in Kandhamal district.

Police have registered at least seventy cases in different police stations related to the communal violence and 54 people have been arrested in this connection, chief minister Naveen Patnaik informed the State Assembly.

But the situation is worst in Kandhamal district. "We have given orders to shoot at sight anybody defying curfew and indulging in violence," Revenue Divisional Commissioner Satyabrata Sahu told IANS as the violence raged -- mostly in isolated rural hamlets. Police and paramilitary forces marched through the troubled towns of the district Wednesday. Orders under section 144, which prohibits the assembly of five or more people, have been clamped in the area.

Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal and other Congress leaders arrived in the state capital Bhubaneswar to visit the riot hit region. However, the state government prevented them from carrying on saying that the situation is not conducive.

Jaiswal and the other Congress leaders are scheduled to visit the region on Thursday.

On Monday, the VHP called for a statewide shutdown. Since then, 11 people have been killed in the state. (IANS)

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