SRINAGAR – Gunmen fired at Indian police officers and freed a suspectedcomrade being transported to a hospital for a medical checkup on Tuesday inthe Indian-held Kashmir, police said.

Police officer Ghulam Hasan Bhatt said two police officers sustained bulletinjuries in the attack and later succumbed to their injuries in Srinagar.The attackers escaped with the alleged insurgent.

The militant, belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, was arrested bypolice in 2015.

Several militant groups have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence fromIndia or its merger with neighbouring Pakistan since 1989. Around 70,000people have been killed in the armed uprising and the ensuing Indianmilitary crackdown.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep among Kashmir’s mostly Muslim population,with most people supporting the separatists’ cause.