File Photo. Asif Hassan—AFP
Police allege local separatist was ‘affiliated’ with Lashkar-e-Taiba
A separatist and a police officer were killed in a gun battle in India-Occupied Kashmir, police said on Wednesday, as tensions simmered in the besieged territory.
The clash in India-Occupied Kashmir’s Baramulla district was the first to be reported by the authorities since New Delhi revoked the autonomy of the part of Kashmir that it controls and imposed a curfew earlier this month.
“One terrorist killed… Arms and ammunition recovered,” Kashmir Zone Police said on Twitter, adding that one police officer had been killed and another was being treated in hospital. Indian forces often refer to local separatists as terrorists in official correspondence.
A later tweet said that the dead separatist was identified as a local man “affiliated” with Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Taiba is a U.N.-listed militant organization based in Pakistan and is accused by India and Washington of masterminding the attacks on Mumbai in 2008 that killed 166. Clashes are common between Indian security forces and separatists opposed to Indian rule, with tens of thousands of people killed in the past 30 years, most of them civilians, adding to public resentment towards New Delhi.
India deployed tens of thousands of troops ahead of its Aug. 5 move in order to contain public anger, severely restricting movement of people and cutting landlines, mobile phones and the internet. Some of the curbs have begun to be eased in recent days with few landlines operational again and schools re-opened, although next to no children attended.