Armed only with axes, a family in Kashmir fought militants carrying AK-47s, and won.

Noor Ahmad was at home with his family on Sunday night when they heard a knock at the door of their house in Shahdra Sharief in the border district of Rajouri.

The door was knocked down and three militants burst in. Refusing to give in, the family fought the militants for hours, finally overpowering them. They managed to kill one of the militants. The other two escaped, leaving behind their guns: an AK 56 and an AK 47 rifle.

Rashida Begum, Noor Ahmad's wife, described her horror: "When my son saw they were beating me and my husband, he attacked a militant with an axe, took his gun and fired some shots. I caught hold of another militant and attacked him with the axe. He too dropped his gun."

The son, Aejaz Ahmad, who said he killed the terrorist, recounted: "We were sleeping in the night when militants knocked at the door...we confronted the militants...I killed the terrorist, I hit him with the axe on the head, my sister fired at him but it didn't hit him. I also hit him with the rifle and I told the Army that I killed him..."

His sister, Ruksana, said she, along with other family members, overpowered the militant and fired with his gun. She too said she fired many shots with the militant's gun, caught hold of him by his hair and hit him against the wall and with the gun. The militants too fired, she said, and they fought for four hours...

Police believe the man who was killed is Laskhkar-e-Toiba commander Abu Uzama, a Pakistani who has been operating in the twin districts of Rajouri-Poonch for the last four years.

"How long can people bear the atrocities of militants? The time has come for the people to take their defence in their own hands - they had no weapons and it was a case of the AK 47 rifle versus the axe," said Showkat Watali, a senior police official in the area.