DELHI TO LIFT KASHMIR ADVISORY
SRINAGAR India on Thursday will lift an advisory asking tourists and pilgrims to leave Jammu & Kashmir, further rolling back steps taken during a crackdown launched before the government scrapped the special status of the Muslim-majority state two months ago.
But underlining the continued security risks after the state government issued its advisory late on Monday, police said on Tuesday that two militants belonging to Pakistan-based Lashkar-etaiba (LET) had been killed.
A military official told Reuters the militants were caught in a firefight in Pulwama district, some 25 kilometres south of Srinagar, the state’s summer capital, and in the same area where in February a suicide bomber rammed a car into a bus carrying Indian paramilitary police.
A police official, who declined to be named, said the two deaths meant six militants had been killed since the crackdown began in August.
Thousands of Indian tourists, pilgrims and workers fled Jammu & Kashmir in early August after authorities issued a security alert over possible militant attacks by Pakistan-backed groups, assertions rejected by Islamabad.
Telephone and internet services were suspended and public movements restricted in some areas to prevent protests hours before India announced it had revoked the region’s special status.
Some curbs have since been lifted. However, mobile and internet services are largely still blocked in the Kashmir valley.