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Kashmir attacks: Indian soldiers mutilated and police shot dead | Kashmir attacks: Indian soldiers mutilated and police shot dead |
(35 minutes later) | |
India’s security forces have suffered a double blow in Kashmir, with five police officers shot dead in a bank raid and two soldiers killed in an attack on the border with Pakistan. | India’s security forces have suffered a double blow in Kashmir, with five police officers shot dead in a bank raid and two soldiers killed in an attack on the border with Pakistan. |
Early on Monday, the Indian army accused Pakistan of killing two of its soldiers and mutilating their bodies in an “unprovoked” rocket and mortar attack in the disputed border region. | Early on Monday, the Indian army accused Pakistan of killing two of its soldiers and mutilating their bodies in an “unprovoked” rocket and mortar attack in the disputed border region. |
The army said Pakistani troops attacked a patrol operating between two border posts on the de facto frontier known as the line of control in the remote Himalayan region. | |
“In an unsoldierly act by the Pak army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated,” it said, warning of an “appropriate response”. | |
The Pakistani army denied responsibility for the cross-border attack, and said the mutilation claims were false. “Pakistan army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even Indian,” it said. | |
India’s defence minister, Arun Jaitley, said the incident was “the handiwork of a neighbouring nation”. | |
In a separate event later in the day, suspected militants opened fire on a bank van carrying cash about 45 miles (70km) south of Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar, killing everybody on board, police said. | |
“All the seven in the van, five policemen and two bank employees, were killed,” the director general of police, SP Vaid, said of the raid in Pumbai, Kulgam district. | |
The assailants escaped with cash and weapons, another police officer said on condition of anonymity. | |
In a statement to a local news agency, the Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack and warned more would follow. | In a statement to a local news agency, the Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack and warned more would follow. |
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British rule in 1947, but both claim the territory in its entirety. | Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British rule in 1947, but both claim the territory in its entirety. |
Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the predominantly Muslim Kashmir valley, one of the world’s most heavily militarised spots, where most people favour independence or a merger with Pakistan. | Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the predominantly Muslim Kashmir valley, one of the world’s most heavily militarised spots, where most people favour independence or a merger with Pakistan. |
Apart from armed militant groups, the roughly 500,000 Indian soldiers in Kashmir are regularly involved in clashes with civilians. Last week they shot at a crowd of demonstrators outside a garrison where militants had previously killed three soldiers, hitting one civilian who later died. |
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