Twenty-one people, including a top leader of freedom fighters group, were killed on Friday in second straight day of surging violence in occupied Kashmir, police said.
The bloodshed comes despite breakthrough talks set for February 16-18 between India and Pakistan, which each control part of the scenic Himalayan province.
Police in occupied Srinagar on Friday shot and killed Mohammed Rafique, a senior commander of al-Umar Mujahedeen group, a police spokesman claimed.
Rafique's relatives alleged that the he was arrested late on Thursday and killed in custody.
Al-Umar Mujahedeen's supreme commander Mustaq Zargar said the death of Rafique, who was also known as Lidder, was "a big loss to us".
"We will not allow his martyrdom to go waste," Zargar told local media by telephone, naming Khalid Javed as the slain leader's successor.
Rafique was buried amid the chanting of slogans at a funeral attended by 2,000 people, including Umar Farooq, witnesses said.
Troops killed 10 more freedom fighters in clashes across occupied Kashmir while suspected freedom fighters killed seven occupation soldiers and three civilians, police alleged.
The dead included two alleged freedom fighter killed when they tried to sneak across from Azad Kashmir over the heavily militarised de facto border at Bimbergali in the south of the province, according to police.
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