Police die as militants strike in Kashmir Militants attacked a paramilitary police in India's restive Kashmir region on Wednesday, killing five police and injuring seven more, before being shot dead. The incident, which occurred in a high-security area of Srinagar, the summer capital of the Muslim-majority region, was the first suicide attack by militants in the city in three years. Authorities said the gunfight between the militants and paramilitary police lasted about 30 minutes and that two militants were killed. In the hours following the incident, police were scouring the area to ensure no other militants had escaped. The attack occurred on a day when the Kashmir Valley was shut down in response to a strike call by separatist leaders protesting againt New Delhi's refusal to return the body of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri man secretly executed last month, to his family. Kashmir, a beautiful Himalayan region that has been racked for decades by a violent conflict between separatist militants and Indian security forces, has had three years of relative calm and its crucial tourism industry has rebounded. But the hanging of Guru, who was convicted of providing logistical support for a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament that killed 14 people, has reignited simmering resentment against India in the province. Guru, who had been on death row for eight years, was hanged without any notice and without his family being given an opportunity for a final meeting. Many Kashmiris believe Guru was not given a fair trial and that he was an innocent pawn in a complex geopolitical game. Human rights groups and Indian activists have also raised doubts about his trial and conviction, particularly questioning the competence and conduct of his court-appointed defence lawyer. In the weeks since the execution, many parts of Kashmir have been under prolonged curfew in a bid to curb violent clashes between police and protesters. Four people have died in confrontations and about 300 have been arrested, many of whom remain in custody. New Delhi's repeated refusal to return the body of Guru, who was buried in the Tihar jail grounds, to his family for final rites has further inflamed tensions and triggered uproars in Jammu and Kashmir's state legislative assembly. Kashmir, fabled for his salubrious climates in summer, was effectively divided at the end of British colonial-rule between India and Pakistan, which both claim the province as their own - and have fought three wars over it. In 1989, Indian-administered Kashmir, which is part of India's Jammu and Kashmir state, erupted in a separatist insurgency that New Delhi blamed Pakistan for fomenting and supporting. Since then, violence has killed an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 militants, civilians and security personnel and inflicted widespread economic damage. India and Pakistan have numerous rounds of peace talks, but have never resolved the core dispute.