Three suspected militants were killed Saturday in separate gunbattles in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said.
India’s military said soldiers intercepted a group of militants in a forested area in southern Anantnag district, leading to a gunbattle that killed two rebels. In a separate incident in the disputed region’s main city of Srinagar, police and paramilitary soldiers killed a militant in an exchange of gunfire after troops cordoned off a neighborhood on a tip that he was hiding in a house. Two soldiers and two police were injured in the fighting.
Residents said the troops torched the home where the rebel was trapped, a common tactic employed by Indian troops in the Himalayan region. There was no independent confirmation of the incident.
India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989, with many Muslim Kashmiris supporting the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, while Pakistan denies the charge and considers it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the decades-long conflict.
The latest incidents mark the continuation of the volatile security situation in the disputed Kashmir region, where Indian forces regularly clash with suspected militants. The loss of civilian and military lives underscores the human toll of the ongoing insurgency against Indian rule in the area.
While the Indian government maintains that the militants are backed by Pakistan, the conflict remains a complex and contentious issue, with competing nationalist claims over the status of Kashmir fueling the unrest. The fighting shows no signs of abating as the standoff between India and Pakistan over the territory persists.
