SRINAGAR, 19 October 2003 — Government forces yesterday killed two militants hiding in a shopping complex near the residence of India’s most senior elected official in Kashmir, ending a 24-hour standoff, police said.

Two commandos were wounded as they raided the complex at daybreak and were fired at by rebels holed up on the top floor of the four-story complex, said R.S. Bhullar, the deputy inspector general of Border Security Force.

Government soldiers searched the Ali Jan shopping complex after dragging out the bodies of the two militants.

“The operation is over. Two militants have been killed. The area is cleared and secure,” said Gopal Sharma, the director-general of local police.

The exchange of gunfire and grenade explosions by the rebels shattered windows and left bullet marks and blood splattered on three floors of the building.

The guerrillas entered the complex Friday after detonating two grenades near the home of Jammu and Kashmir state’s Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. He was not home at the time of the attack.

The blasts injured three soldiers and four civilians, including photographers of the Associated Press and a local newspaper. Two paramilitary soldiers were also killed before the attackers entered the shopping center.

In all, 22 soldiers and police have been injured during the battle with the militants, Bhullar said.

Soldiers and police in combat gear had evacuated 25 trapped civilians using a rope ladder, he said.

“While inside, we were lying flat on our bellies and remembering God,” said Hina Rashid, 23, a computer trainer. “After the rescue team arrived, we slipped down a rope from the fourth floor.”

Two relatively unknown militant groups, Farzandan-e-Millat and Al-Nasireen, claimed responsibility for the attacks in a telephone call to a local news agency in Srinagar on Friday.

Police officers said Farzandan-e-Millat was previously unknown, while Al-Nasireen was believed to be a cover for the Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

India’s Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani said that “according to preliminary information, this was the work of the Al-Monsoorian group,” using another name for Lashkar-e-Taiba. He suggested the Pakistan government supported the attack.

“The attack shows that our neighbor’s attitude hasn’t changed yet,” Advani said.

Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the AP in Islamabad that there was “no truth” in Advani’s allegations.

Pakistan says it supports the cause of militants in Kashmir, but denies giving them material aid. Militants have fought since 1989 to merge India’s portion of Kashmir with Pakistan or make it independent. More than 63,000 people have been killed in the fighting.

Advani yesterday said India and Pakistan could open a new chapter in bilateral relations if Islamabad handed over 20 criminals New Delhi says are sheltered there.

“A new chapter can be opened in India-Pakistan relations if Islamabad hands over Dawood Ibrahim and the other 19 terrorists whose list was given to Pakistan last year,” the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted Advani as saying at a function in New Delhi.

Buoyed by the US Treasury Department branding India’s most wanted criminal — Dawood Ibrahim — a “specially designated global terrorist” on Thursday, Advani asked Pakistan to comply with India’s demand of handing over the 20 alleged criminals.

India put forward its demand for Pakistan to hand over the 20 in December 2001, days after Kashmiri separatists launched an attack on the national Parliament complex.

Ibrahim — widely known in South Asia simply as Dawood — is wanted in India on charges of masterminding serial bombings in Bombay that killed almost 300 people and left around 1,000 injured a decade ago.

The list includes another underworld leader, Mohammad Shafi Memon, as well as Maulana Masood Azhar and Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founders respectively of the Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has ruled out extraditing any Pakistani nationals on the list.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday reiterated a rejection of the demand for right to self-determination in Kashmir.

He said parts of Kashmir were occupied by Pakistan and India would demand that Pakistan vacate those areas whenever the subject was discussed. “We do not want anybody’s land, but we will not part with even an inch of ours,” he said.

Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan claim the scenic Himalayan region, which has been the spark for two of the three wars between the two since their independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

— Additional input from agencies