SRINAGAR, India, Jan 23 (Reuters) - A landmine planted by separatist militants in Indian Kashmir exploded under a police minibus on Tuesday, killing three policemen and wounding five, police said, in new violence ahead of India's Republic Day. Security has been stepped up in the restive state of Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India ahead of Republic Day on Jan. 26, the day the country adopted its republican constitution in 1950. "It was a powerful landmine explosion," a police officer told Reuters. Tuesday's attack took place in Pulwama district, 35 km (20 miles) south of Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar, and a day after suspected Muslim separatists threw a grenade at a police patrol but missed, wounding 13 people at a nearby bus stand. Earlier on Tuesday, a soldier was wounded when militants threw a grenade at a security bunker in northern Kashmir, police said. Kashmir's biggest militant group Hizbul Mujahideen called newspaper offices in Srinagar and said it had carried out both attacks. Militant groups in Kashmir and in other parts of India often step up violence on and around the Republic Day celebrations to highlight their various causes. Hizbul Mujahideen, as well as political separatist groups, have called a general strike in Kashmir on Jan. 26 in Kashmir to mark what they call "a black day". "The strike will convey to the world that the people of Kashmir will take their struggle to its logical conclusion," Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, said in a statement on Monday. Officials say more than 40,000 people have been killed in Kashmir in the 17-year Muslim separatist revolt against Indian rule. Human rights groups put the toll at around 60,000 dead or missing.
