Soldiers killed four suspected rebels and captured another during a day-long gun battle in Indian Kashmir near the border dividing the region between India and Pakistan, a defense spokesman said Thursday.

Soldiers detected the group of militants in Uri, 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Indian Kashmir's main city of Srinagar, on Wednesday morning, triggering a firefight that ended on Thursday afternoon.

Thousands of troops patrolled Gujarat Thursday after at least nine people including a police officer died in the worst violence to hit the Indian prime minister's home state in more than a decade.

Schools were closed as authorities imposed a curfew in the worst-hit areas after nearly two days of rioting following a rally in the main city of Ahmedabad by an estimated half a million members of the Patidar caste.

At least six people have died in the worst violence to hit Narendra Modi's home state in more than a decade, police said Wednesday, as the Indian prime minister appealed for calm.

Authorities in western Gujarat state said the army had been deployed to try to restore peace after a mass rally turned violent, with protesters torching cars, buses and police stations.

Suspected Maoist rebels killed three paramilitary troopers and injured another six in an ambush in eastern India on Wednesday, a police officer said.

After triggering a landmine, the rebels opened fire with assault rifles on a Border Security Force convoy in a forested area of Orissa state, district police chief Mitrabhanu Mahapatra said.

India said Friday it has urged Pakistan against meeting Kashmiri separatist leaders ahead of rare talks between the two countries' top security advisers in New Delhi, hiking tensions between the arch rivals.

The foreign ministry said it would be inappropriate for Pakistan's National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz to hold the meeting on Sunday in Delhi just before scheduled talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval.

Pakistan on Wednesday summoned a senior Indian diplomat to protest ceasefire violations and the killing of a civilian from Kashmir in cross-border shelling in the disputed Himalayan region.

The civilian was killed in shelling by Indian troops near the Harpal sector of the Line of Control (LoC)-- the region's de facto border, the Pakistani foreign ministry said in a statement.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged India and Pakistan to show restraint following clashes in the disputed region of Kashmir that have caused deaths on both sides.

Ban said an upcoming meeting of security chiefs on August 23-24 could help bolster dialogue between the two countries, which have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.

A police driver and a suspected Maoist rebel commander were killed and a top police officer injured in a gun battle with left-wing guerrillas in central India's Jharkhand state, officials said.

Suspected rebels armed with automatic rifles attacked the vehicle of Prabhat Kumar, Ranchi's senior superintendent of police, injuring him, another policeman and killing his driver. 

A landslide struck a popular Sikh temple complex in northern India on Tuesday, killing at least seven people and wounding nine others, police said.

Rescue workers equipped with cutting equipment and sniffer dogs were searching through the rubble for survivors after boulders barreled down a nearby hill onto the complex in Himachal Pradesh state.

A policeman and a civilian were killed Tuesday when suspected rebels opened fire outside a Muslim shrine in Indian Kashmir, police said.

The militants targeted the police officer guarding the shrine of Tujjar Sharif, 55 kilometers (35 miles) northwest of the main city of Srinagar.