The couple were killed late Monday night in the Thand Dhok area, some 190-kilometers (120-miles) north west of Jammu, the winter capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, said local police chief Farooq Khan.

Khan said the two were Muslim and likely killed because they were suspected of informing Indian forces on the militants. However, he said it also could have been a feud between two militant outfits and their supporters.

No militant organisation immediately claimed responsibility for the act.

Meanwhile, in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir, a pro-independence Kashmiri group held a daylong hunger strike to protest alleged human rights abuses by Indian security forces.

Nearly 2,000 people, some holding placards, sat quietly and listened as political leaders of the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front recited poetry and spoke about the situation in Kashmir.

Yasin Malik, chairman of the JKLF, said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised to end human rights abuses in the Indian-held portion of Kashmir.

In May, Singh acknowledged during a visit to Kashmir that some human rights abuses do occur, and promised "zero tolerance" of them. But allegations of excesses by security forces have continued.

The JKLF yesterday displayed photographs of at least six people who the group alleged had been killed by security forces in the last three months.

The JKLF is one of more than a dozen militant groups which have been fighting since 1989 in India's portion of Kashmir for the region's independence or its merger with Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Kashmir is divided between the two countries but claimed by both.

The insurgency has killed more than 68,000 people, most of them civilians.