SRINAGAR: Indian forces have martyred five freedom fighters on Friday in the latest series of clashes in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) that have left 17 dead in two weeks, police said.
According to the district police, an official of the Indian army was also killed in a gunfight in the Rajpora area of the occupied valley that started Thursday night. The Himalayan disputed region has seen a new rise in unrest in recent weeks.
Three suspected rebels were martyred by the Indian army in the Kulgam forest on Wednesday, a day after police claimed an influential rebel commander Nadeem Abrar was martyred while in custody. The commander, captured on Monday, was taken to a house where he had hidden a rifle and was martyred.
Suspected rebels have used hand grenades and automatic weapons in other earlier attacks, killing six people including a police intelligence officer, a special police officer and his wife and daughter, a shopkeeper and one civilian.
The military said that 61 suspected rebels have been martyred this year so far. The surge in violence came after 14 pro-India leaders from IIOJK held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month.
The leaders included three former chief ministers of the former Jammu and Kashmir state who were detained for months after the Modi government cancelled IIOJK’s semi-autonomous status in August 2019. It is now divided into two territories ruled by Delhi.
