Militants have been waging an insurgency since 1989 against India’s rule of the region in a conflict that has left more than 47,000 people dead.
SRINAGAR: Army search operations triggered two separate gunbattles with suspected rebels in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir that killed at least eight combatants, an official said Wednesday.
Two soldiers, including an officer, were fatally shot by suspected rebels early Wednesday in Baniyari, a village 28 miles northwest of Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir, said Col. K. Umamaheswar, an Indian army spokesman.
Two militants were also killed in the fighting, Umamaheswar told The Associated Press. The soldiers stormed a house after a tip that rebels were hiding there, and the insurgents responded with heavy gunfire, the officer said.
Another gunbattle killed two soldiers and two suspected rebels overnight in Ladoo, a forested area 40 miles west of Srinagar, Umamaheswar said.
Two other soldiers were wounded in the fighting, which started Monday after the army and police conducted search operations in the area, he said.
The accounts could not be independently verified, and there was no word from the rebels, who have been fighting Indian rule in disputed Kashmir since 1989. The two-decade-long uprising and Indian crackdown have killed more than 68,000 people, mostly civilians. -AP
