India soldier killed in Kashmir market attack

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24201783

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A paramilitary soldier has been killed in Indian-administered Kashmir when suspected militants fired at two soldiers in a busy market in Srinagar.

The soldiers from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) were attacked when they were shopping near the Iqbal Park area on Monday morning.

The second soldier was admitted to hospital with injuries, police said.

Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan, has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989.

India has a large security presence in Kashmir with tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces deployed in the region.

In Monday's violence, police said "militants used silencer-fitted pistols and fired from a point blank range at the soldiers who were not carrying any arms with them," the Press Trust of India reported.

The area has been cordoned off and a hunt has been launched for the attackers, police said.

In recent years violence in Kashmir has abated from its peak in the 1990s, but the causes of the insurgency are still far from resolved.

And the hanging earlier this year of a Kashmiri man, Afzal Guru, on charges of plotting the 2001 attack on India's parliament, has triggered a fresh spate of violence.

In May, four soldiers were killed in an ambush by suspected militants in the Pulwama district.

In March, two armed militants disguised as cricket players attacked a paramilitary camp and killed five troops.

The militants were killed in retaliatory fire. Two people were arrested in connection with the attack.