Two Indian soldiers, six rebels killed in Kashmir gun battles

Authorities in the disputed territory say they ‘carried out two different operations’ in two villages in Kulgam.

Two Indian soldiers have been killed alongside six rebels in two separate gun battles in the Indian-administered Kashmir, according to the police, raising concerns about the security situation in the disputed Himalayan region.

Kashmir police’s Inspector General Vidhi Kumar Birdi told the AFP news agency on Sunday that security forces “carried out two different operations” in villages in the Kulgam district in the disputed territory in which two soldiers were killed.

Birdi said gunfights continued in Modergram and Frisal Chinnigam villages.

“We have retrieved the bodies of two terrorists from Modergram, and four others from Frisal Chinnigam,” said Birdi.

The deadly incident is the latest in an uptick of attacks in the Muslim-majority region, where armed rebellion erupted in the late 1980s against Indian rule. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, although violence has tapered off in recent years.

India regularly accuses Pakistan of supporting and arming rebels in the region, a charge Islamabad denies.

India and Pakistan both claim the Muslim-majority Himalayan region in full but govern part of it. They have fought three wars for its control.

In June, nine Indian Hindu pilgrims were killed and dozens wounded when a gunman opened fire on a bus carrying them from a shrine in the southern Reasi area.

It was one of the deadliest attacks in years and the first on Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir since 2017 when armed men killed seven people in another ambush on a bus.

In August 2019, Modi’s Hindu nationalist government stripped Kashmir of its special status, which allowed it a separate constitution and inherited protections on land and jobs under Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution.

The move was followed by an unprecedented months-long security clampdown in one of the world’s most militarised regions, where anti-India sentiment runs high.

The government said the move was aimed at ending “terrorism”, but attacks have continued, and further alienated Kashmiris from mainland India. The region has been governed from New Delhi since the special status was scrapped in 2019.