Sixteen people have also been killed in other incidents of violence across the state. Police say more than a dozen rifle grenades were fired at the civil secretariat building in Srinagar from a nearby area. Four grenades fell in three different places outside the secretariat, killing a civilian and injuring two others, including a policeman. Three unexploded grenades were recovered from the premises of the fire service headquarters, located nearby.
Reports say the attack led to panic in the heavily fortified complex.
Police and paramilitary troops who were deployed around the complex fired in the air to scare away the militants. The group was set up by Maulana Masood Azhar, the Pakistani cleric freed during last year's Indian Airlines hijack. The BBC's Altaf Hussein in Srinagar says this is the third grenade attack on the civil secretariat in the past nine months. Four government officials were killed in the previous two attacks that took place last year. The authorities say at least seven militants have been killed in two separate clashes in the Jammu border district of Rajouri.