Srinagar, August 10: Troops shot dead four militants Monday as soldiers prevented fresh attempts by rebels to infiltrate Indian Kashmir from Pakistan, officials said.
“Alert troops killed a militant infiltrator on Monday thus preventing another attempt by the rebels to cross the LOC,” Indian army spokesman J.S. Brar told AFP, referring to the Line of Control that splits Kashmir between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.
In the southern district of Reasi Monday, security forces shot dead another three militants during a forest gunbattle, a police spokesman said.
Police attributed the surge in activity to the Indian national holiday on August 15, which marks the country’s independence from British rule in 1947.
Since last Sunday, the army has foiled nine attempts by the rebels to infiltrate from the Pakistani zone of the disputed Kashmir region. The fighting has left nearly 20 militants and three soldiers dead.
In New Delhi Monday, Indian army chief general Deepak Kapoor suggested the rebels had support from the Pakistani army because of their sophisticated equipment.
“The possibility of a certain amount of support to them (militants) by the established institutions (in Pakistan) cannot be ruled out,” he told reporters.
The army says militant attempts to cross the ceasefire line into Indian Kashmir normally increase in the summer as the snow melts in the mountain passes.
There has been a sudden spurt in rebel violence in the Himalayan region since last Saturday when rebels killed two policemen in Srinagar.
The insurgency in Kashmir has left more than 47,000 people dead, according to an official count.
India accuses Pakistan of training, arming and funding rebels battling New Delhi’s rule in Indian Kashmir, a charge that Islamabad denies.
—-Agencies