At least three suspected militants were killed and two policemen wounded in two separate gun battles yesterday in the Indian portion of Kashmir, police said.
Police and the army cordoned off the village of Wahipora following a tip that some suspected militants were hiding there, said police officer Imtiaz Hussain.
Suspected rebels opened fire as government forces converged on their hide-out in the village, 40km south of Srinagar, the main city in the Indian portion of Kashmir, Hussain said. A gun battle left two suspected rebels dead and two policemen wounded.
Hussain said the suspected guerrillas belonged to Hezbul Mujahidin, Kashmir's largest militant group.
There was no independent confirmation of the police claim.
The fighting came a few hours before a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf in Havana, Cuba, on the sidelines of the Nonaligned Movement summit.
The two sides have been trying to resolve the decades-old Kashmir dispute, but failed to make any breakthroughs.
The two leaders are expected to order a resumption of the official-level dialogue stalled since train bombings in Mumbai in July killed more than 200 people.
India has blamed the bombings on Pakistan-based rebel groups.
In another joint operation in a nearby forested area by the village of Narwani yesterday, the army and police shot and killed one suspected militant, officials said.
Meanwhile, Colonel Hemant Juneja, an army spokesman, said a suspected militant killed in a gun battle with the army on Friday was a senior commander of the Lashkar-e-Tayabba, another key rebel group.
Nearly a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan since 1989.
More than 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese