Three Kashmiri fighters and Indian soldiers were killed in separate shootouts in India-controlled Kashmir.
At least three rebel fighters and one Indian soldier were killed in separate Indian-controlled shootouts in Kashmir less than a week after Amit Shah visited the contested territory.
Indian troops said on Saturday that Indian soldiers killed three fighter jets in a shooting that began on Wednesday in a remote forest in Kishtwar in southern Kashmir.
Brigadier General JBS Rathi, a senior Indian Army official, said the army had demonstrated “great tactical insight.”
“The gun battle neutralised three terrorists,” he told reporters on Saturday in a commonly used term of rebels opposed to Indian rule in Kashmir.
Weapons and “war-like shops” were recovered from the site. The Army’s White Knight Legion was posted on social media platform X.
A soldier was killed in another incident along the Control (LOC) late Friday night in the Thunderbani district.
The White Knight Corps said Unit X “stolen an attempt to penetrate.”
Kashmir, the majority of Muslims, has been divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan since independence in 1947, both claim the territory fully, but only part of it.
India has an estimated half a million soldiers deployed on its territory after an armed uprising against Indian rule in the late 1980s.
Most Kashmir civilians have been killed as rebel groups are fighting the Indian army and are killed in sought Kashmir’s independence and merger with Pakistan.
In 2019, a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights accused India of being a human rights violation in Kashmir and called for a committee on investigation into the allegations. The report comes almost a year after then-UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for an international investigation into abuse in the majority of Muslim regions.
Four police officers and two rebels were killed in the area last month, and several police officers were also injured.
The territory has boiled down anger since 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended the semi-autonomy in the region and dramatically suppressed objections, civil liberties and media freedoms while strengthening military operations.
Thousands of additional forces, including special forces, were deployed in the mountainous regions of the southern last year following the attacks of a series of deadly rebel forces that killed more than 50 soldiers in three years.
India regularly denounces Pakistan for pushing rebels across the lock to launch attacks on Indian forces.
Islamabad has denied the allegations, saying it only supports Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination.
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