6 rebels, soldier killed ahead of visit by prime minister

SRINAGAR, India — Six suspected rebels and an Indian paramilitary officer were killed in two separate clashes in Indiacontrolled Kashmir two days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the disputed region.

A gunfight broke out on the outskirts of southern Jammu city Friday after police and soldiers spotted a group of militants in Sunjwan, a garrison town, police said. Two militants and a paramilitary officer were killed, and at least two soldiers and two police officials were wounded in the ensuing fight, police said.

Troops searched the area, which was the scene of a major militant attack in 2018 that left at least five soldiers and one civilian dead.

Dilbag Singh, director-general of police, said the slain militants “were planning a major attack.”

Some 9 miles from Sunjwan town, Modi is scheduled to speak Sunday in his first public event in the disputed region since New Delhi stripped it of its semi-autonomous status in 2019 and divided it into two directly governed territories. The region has remained on edge since, as authorities put in place a host of new laws that critics and many residents fear could change majority-Muslim Kashmir’s demographics.

Modi’s two previous visits after Kashmir’s status was changed were to military camps to celebrate a Hindu festival with soldiers.

Singh said the slain militants were a “suicide squad from Pakistan” and their infiltration was likely part of a “conspiracy to sabotage” Modi’s visit. “But timely action by our alert forces have foiled the bid,” he said. The police chief did not offer any evidence to back up his claim.

Separately, government forces for a second day battled a group of militants who were holed up in Malwah, a village northwest of the region’s main city of Srinagar, leaving four rebels dead, police said. The firefight began after counterinsurgency police and soldiers raided a cluster of civilian homes in Malwah.

At least four soldiers and a policeman were also wounded, a police statement said.

Police identified one of the slain militants as Yousuf Kantroo and said he had been the longest surviving rebel commander in Kashmir. There was no independent confirmation of the incidents.

India and Pakistan both claim the divided territory of Kashmir in its entirety. Rebels in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989.