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SRINAGAR, India, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Two activists of pro-India political parties have been shot dead ahead of state assembly elections in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said on Thursday.

Muslim militants fighting Indian rule in its only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, have threatened to attack anyone taking part in the elections, which are due to start on September 16.

Police said unidentified gunmen had shot dead a senior activist of the pro-India Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party (PDP) on the outskirts of Srinagar on Thursday.

Suspected rebels also shot dead an activist of the ruling National Conference party on Wednesday night in Baramulla, they said.

Elsewhere, a soldier and six militants were killed in gunbattles across the state over 24 hours, police said.

In addition, a police official said three civilians had been accidentally killed by Indian soldiers when they wandered into an ambush set for Islamic rebels in Rajouri, 176 km (110 miles) north of Jammu.

India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring the nearly 13-year-old insurgency by training and arming fighters, but Islamabad denies the charge, saying it only provides diplomatic and moral support to what it calls a Kashmiri freedom struggle.

A defence official in Jammu said India and Pakistan -- which have massed hundreds of thousands of troops on their frontier -- had traded heavy fire for six hours on Thursday across the ceasefire line dividing Kashmir -- much longer than on the previous two days. No casualties have been reported.

Kashmir has been the cause of two wars between India and Pakistan. Authorities say more than 35,000 people have died since the outbreak of the rebellion in late 1989. Separatists put the death toll at over 80,000. 

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