POLICE have shot dead four suspected Islamic militants believed to be plotting attacks and recruiting fighters for a campaign against Indian rule in Kashmir, officials said. The men, including two Pakistanis, were killed in a shoot-out during a raid at a home on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in western Gujarat state, officers said. Three officers were slightly hurt in the gun-battle. The four dead men were suspected of being from Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, a Pakistan-based militant Islamic group. "These people had come here to get new recruits among local youngsters and also to organise terrorist strikes which could include blasts or killings of VIPs," said senior police official P.P. Pandey.Police found four handguns, ammunition, money and a bag marked "Mission Kashmir" believed to contain about one kilogramme of explosives in the two-bedroom house. Officials said there was no apparent link between the shootings and the blast earlier this month that killed 23 people in Varanasi, Hinduism's holiest city, blamed on militants fighting New Delhi's rule in Indian Kashmir.