(New Delhi) An Indian soldier was killed Sunday in Kashmir, a disputed region in northwest India with a Muslim majority where fighting and armed incidents are recurrent, said the army, which also reported the day before the death of ‘a suspected rebel.
Published yesterday at 1:05 p.m.
The soldier died during an operation mounted “on the basis of intelligence” about the presence of possible rebels in the remote town of Kishtwar, where armed men shot dead two villagers belonging to a self-defense group.
These armed men belonged to the “same group” responsible for the death of members of this village militia, the army said in a message posted on X.
Self-defense groups are tasked with combating rebel attacks in Hindu-majority areas.
PHOTO TAUSEEF MUSTAFA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A security personnel stands on top of an armored vehicle in Srinagar on November 10, 2024.
On Saturday evening, the army reported the death of a suspected rebel in a separate battle.
“A terrorist was neutralized by security forces,” the army’s XV Corps said, using a phrase meaning that an insurgent had been killed.
Police also reported two shootings on Sunday in the Himalayan region where fighting was reported in the Zabarwan and Baramulla sectors.
Kashmir is a predominantly Muslim territory divided between India and Pakistan since they split into two countries at the end of British rule in 1947.
Both New Delhi and Islamabad claim the region in its entirety.
India, whose government advocates Hindu nationalism, has deployed at least half a million soldiers in Kashmir to try to end a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and insurgents since 1989.
Some rebel groups want independence for the territory, others for it to be absorbed entirely by Pakistan.
India regularly accuses its neighbor of arming separatists and helping them carry out their attacks, which Pakistan denies.
PHOTO MUKHTAR KHAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Indian soldiers take part in the search operation after a shootout with suspected militants, November 10, 2024.
On October 3, 12 people were injured in a grenade attack on a busy market in Srinagar, the main city of Indian Kashmir.
Since October, the rebels have notably ambushed an Indian army convoy and fired on a construction site in Gagangir, a few dozen kilometers northwest of Srinagar, killing seven.
On Wednesday, the new regional parliament of Indian Kashmir adopted a resolution demanding that New Delhi restore the partial autonomy of the region, raised in 2019 by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi which placed the territory under trusteeship.
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