SRINAGAR, India (AP) - An Indian soldier was killed during a gunbattle with rebels in Kashmir on Friday as residents panicked over reports of India’s deployment of thousands of more soldiers to the disputed region.
The fighting erupted after police and soldiers cordoned off a village in southern Shopian area on a tip that militants were hiding there, police said. In the exchange of gunfire, at least one soldier was killed and another wounded.
As the news of the counterinsurgency operation spread, anti-India protests and clashes broke out with villagers trying to reach near the site of fighting and help the trapped militants to escape. At least three civilians were injured in the clashes with government forces who fired shotgun pellets and tear gas to stop stone-throwing protesters from marching in the streets.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and each claim the divided Himalayan territory in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting Indian control since 1989. Most Kashmiris support the rebels’ demand that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country, while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control.
Meanwhile, panic has gripped Kashmir since last week after India announced it was deploying at least 10,000 more soldiers to one of the world’s most militarized areas. The troop buildup has sparked fears that New Delhi is planning to scrap an Indian constitutional provision that disallows Indians from buying land in the Muslim-majority region.
Indian soldiers are ubiquitous in Kashmir where residents make little secret of their fury at their presence in the Himalayan region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in its election manifesto earlier this year promised to do away with decadesold special rights for the Kashmiris under India’s Constitution. The party used the conflict over Kashmir as a major campaign issue to win the recent national election with a thumping majority.
A top security official said the entire security grid in Kashmir has been directed to be on “alert as major policy revamp in in offing” regarding Kashmir. “We don’t know exactly what it’s about but it’s certainly some kind of decision which has far-reaching security implications,” the official said on condition of anonymity in keeping with department policy.
Omar Abdullah, a top pro-India Kashmiri leader who has criticized Modi government’s muscular approach in Kashmir, said in a tweet Friday that the security alert, “if actually issued, would be about something very different” and not about removing special status.
Amid the grandstanding by politicians and officials, ordinary Kashmiris are stalked by panic, fearing that the already ongoing crackdown against anti-India dissenters would be intensified.
“The uncertainty makes the situation simply horrific and as frightening as it can be,” said Javaid Ahmed, a resident in Srinagar, the region’s main city. “People are dead worried about their lives and families. There’s this flow of media leaks further streamed through various social media platforms, which strengthen the perceptions that Indian state might be up to some dangerous clampdown on the population it perceives as hostile for raising demands of self-determination for last over 70 years.”
Kashmir has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule in last few years as a new generation of Kashmiri rebels, especially in the southern parts of the region, has revived the militancy and challenged New Delhi’s rule with guns and effective use of social media.
The anti-India unrest has especially simmered in Kashmir since a popular rebel leader was killed in 2016. The Indian government responded by stepped up anti-rebel operations, leading to more protests against Indian rule while Kashmiris have fiercely tried to protect rebels by hurling stones and abuse at the first sight of Indian troops entering their villages for crackdown against militants.
About 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian crackdown since 1989.
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