SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Two Indian soldiers and a suspected militant have been killed in one of longest gunfights in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said Saturday.
The fighting began on Aug. 1 after Indian troops laid a cordon in southern Kulgam district’s Akhal forested area following a tip that a group of insurgents was operating there, officials said.
Multiple search operations in the area by soldiers triggered a series of firefights with militants, initially leaving one militant dead and seven soldiers wounded, officials said. Since then, intermittent fighting continued in the area as troops deployed helicopters and drones to combat an unspecified number of militants in the vast, forested area.
According to officials, two army soldiers were killed and two others injured on the eighth day, late Friday.
The Indian army in a statement on social media said the operation continued in the area on Saturday.
Officials did not give any other details. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the details.
Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support 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. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Last month, India’s powerful home minister Amit Shah said in parliament that three suspected militants killed in a gunbattle in the disputed region were responsible for a shooting massacre in which more than two dozen people died and that led to a military clash between India and Pakistan earlier this year.
Before the April gun massacre in the Kashmiri resort town of Pahalgam, the fighting had largely ebbed in the region’s Kashmir Valley, the heartland of anti-India rebellion, and mainly shifted to mountainous areas of Jammu in the past few years.
The massacre increased tensions between India and Pakistan, leading to the worst military confrontation in decades and the death of dozens of people, until a ceasefire was reached on May 10 after U.S mediation.
The region has simmered in anger since New Delhi ended the region’s semi-autonomy in 2019 and drastically curbed dissent, civil liberties and media freedoms while intensifying counterinsurgency operations.
