Four Militants Killed in Gun Battle With Indian Troops
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Version 0 of 1. NEW DELHI — A gun battle in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, in an area close to the disputed border with Pakistan, left four militant fighters dead, the Indian Army said on Monday in a statement. Lt. Col. N.N. Joshi, the army spokesman in Srinagar, the state’s summer capital, said in a telephone interview that heavily armed men crossed into the area from Pakistan and were intercepted by Indian troops. “Militants were cordoned off in a heavily residential area on Sunday morning,” Colonel Joshi said, adding that the army and the police evacuated civilians from the area before the battle, which stretched into Monday. Colonel Joshi said the army was still looking for other militants in the area. Indian and Pakistani forces exchanged gunfire at two locations along the border on Sunday and Monday, injuring one Indian border guard on Monday morning, according to Rakesh Sharma, the chief of the Indian Border Security Force in Jammu. The Pakistan Army did not immediately comment on the episode. Militants also set off a grenade near a cellphone tower in Srinagar on Monday, the Indian Army said. The police have reported a series of attacks on targets related to telecommunications in the state over the last 10 days, including cellphone towers and vendors of SIM cards. At least two people have been killed. Abdul Qayoom, the police chief of Sopore, where one of the attacks took place, said that mobile phone networks were being targeted because new restrictions on the sale of SIM cards in the region had made it difficult for militants to get them. “This is sheer frustration of the militants,” Mr. Qayoom said. India and Pakistan both claim the disputed area of Kashmir, and they have fought three wars over the region, which has been scarred by two decades of armed insurgency. |