Suspected rebels have shot dead a village head in Indian Kashmir, police said Monday, a day before a second stage of voting in the tense Muslim-majority state.

Security is tight across the region, where thousands of extra paramilitary troops have been deployed during local elections, which are being held in five stages.

India said one of its soldiers was killed when Pakistan troops fired early Monday across the border in Kashmir, the latest in a series of deadly flareups in the disputed Himalayan region.

The soldier was killed just after midnight at an army post along the northern part of the heavily militarized border that divides the two countries in Kashmir, an Indian army spokesman said.

Militants stormed a police station and an Indian army base in Kashmir on Thursday, killing at least nine in an attack the state's chief minister said was aimed at derailing peace talks between India and Pakistan.

The militants, all wearing army fatigues, lobbed grenades and opened fire at the Hiranagar police station near the border with Pakistan, around 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the main Kashmiri city of Srinagar, police said.

Indian police and troops killed five suspected rebels in an overnight gunbattle Friday in a forested area of northern Kashmir, triggering anti-India protests by local residents, police said.

Police and an army contingent began a joint operation around midnight near the Najwan forests, 35 kilometers (20 miles) north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Security forces in Indian Kashmir fired tear gas and pellet guns at hundreds of rock-throwing protesters Friday who took to the streets after prayers for Eid, police and witnesses said.

Police and paramilitary forces clashed with the protesters in several locations in the region's main city of Srinagar including at a major prayer ground, injuring at least 30 people.

Indian and Pakistani commanders spoke by hotline Wednesday, a day after Delhi accused Islamabad of involvement in an ambush that killed five Indian troops, a Pakistani military official said.

Pakistan denied any part in the incident, but India lodged an official protest with Islamabad for what was the deadliest loss of life for the Indian army since a 2003 truce agreement.

India Tuesday accused Pakistan's military of involvement in an ambush on an army post in disputed Kashmir which killed five soldiers and punctured hopes of a resumption in peace talks.

While Pakistan denied any involvement, India's defense minister said New Delhi had lodged an official protest with Islamabad for what was the deadliest loss of life for the Indian army since a 2003 truce agreement.

Indian Kashmir largely shut down amid heavy security on Friday after troops shot dead four people during a protest over a paramilitary raid on an Islamic school.

Shops, banks, schools and most government offices were closed in towns across the region, after a separatist leader called a three-day strike to protest Thursday's killings.

Militants disguised as cricketers killed five paramilitary police in an ambush in the main city of Indian Kashmir Wednesday, officials said, in the deadliest attack for nearly five years.

Two gunmen from the local pro-Pakistan group Hizbul Mujahideen, which claimed the attack, were shot dead after the assault on a playing field in the Bemina district of Srinagar that is home to a police school and barracks.

Suspected rebels in Indian Kashmir detonated two blasts outside a police station on Wednesday, injuring nine officers in one of the disputed region's most volatile towns.

Hospital staff said four of the policemen were in a critical condition after the morning attack in Sopore, 55 kilometers north of the provincial summer capital Srinagar.