SRINAGAR: Police and troops claimed to have killed three rebels in two separate gun battles in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) on Tuesday, one of them, near the de facto border with Pakistan, officers said.
Soldiers and members of the police’s special operations group surrounded Hadoora, some 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of the main city of Srinagar, after a tip about suspected rebels inside a house in the village. “In the ensuing gunfight two militants were killed. Both are foreigners” (a standard reference to rebels from Azad Kashmir), police Superintendent Imtiyaz Ismael told AFP. In a separate incident, a group of rebels attempted to cross the Line of Control (LoC) in the Sundabani sector, but were intercepted by Indian soldiers.
“One… was eliminated in the operation while the balance group fled towards Pakistan,” said an army statement. Several rebel groups have spent decades fighting Indian soldiers deployed in the disputed territory, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan. Tens of thousands, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting. Dozens of local youths joined the rebels following the killing of a popular leader by Indian forces in July last year. The incident sparked months of anti-India unrest, which left more than 90 civilians dead.
