POLICE dogs were flown to Kashmir today to help check claims by a captured separatist guerrilla that two Britons, including Blackburn student Paul Wells, and two other western hostages held for nearly a year were killed and buried in a mountain forest, officials said.

The dogs were flown from New Delhi and taken to Magam, 40 miles south of Srinagar, where the hostages were allegedly buried, said a state official.

Officials in Srinagar and New Delhi said the British, US and German embassies asked India to take steps to either confirm or rule out the story by the militant, who was interrogated about three weeks ago.

Foreign experts were also involved in the search, the officials said. The state police chief, Mahinder Nath Sabbarwal, and the US embassy spokesman in New Delhi declined to comment on the police action or about the credibility of the new information.

Britons Keith Mangan and Paul Wells, American Donald Hutchings and German Dirk Hasert were snatched with two others on July 4 by the previously unknown Al-Faran group.

The fifth hostage, American John Childs, escaped within a few days. A sixth, Norwegian Hans Ostroe, was found beheaded in remote forest on August 13.

Rumours about their fate have been rife since direct telephone and radio contact with the abductors was broken off in November.

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