Police in Indian-administered Kashmir say gunmen have killed three members of the minority Hindu community in Anandnagh district south of the capital, Srinagar.

One of the victims was an eight-year-old girl.

A policeman who was posted in the village of Telvani to protect Hindu families was seriously wounded in a gunbattle with the assailants, who fled as reinforcements arrived.

The police had no details of any casualties among the gunmen. A BBC correspondent says tens of thousands of Hindus have fled their homes in Indian-administered Kashmir since Islamic militants began a campaign of insurgency in 1989.

More than twenty-thousand people have been killed in ten years of conflict.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service