Suspected rebels attacked an army camp in Indian-administered Kashmir on Thursday (August 11th), killing three soldiers before being themselves shot, police said, four days before the 75th anniversary of independence from India.
Two men armed with automatic rifles and grenades “
entered the army camp in the dark and there was an exchange of fire with the soldiers.
The army has mourned three deaths and the two attackers were also killed
,” Mukesh Singh, a senior police official, told AFP.
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The incident, which occurred in the region of Rajouri (south), near the line of control, highly militarized, which separates Kashmir from Pakistan, also injured two soldiers.
Authorities say at least 130 militants and dozens of police and soldiers have been killed this year in fighting with rebels fighting for Kashmir's independence or its merger with Pakistan.
On Wednesday, hundreds of Indian soldiers marched on motorbikes through Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, waving the national flag as part of independence celebrations that will culminate on August 15.
Tensions have increased in Kashmir since New Delhi imposed its direct authority on this predominantly Muslim territory, also claimed by Pakistan, in August 2019.
India accuses its big rival of supporting separatist rebels, an allegation that Islamabad denies, claiming to only support Kashmiris in their right to self-determination.
In 1948, the UN had called for the organization of a self-determination referendum.
A request repeated in vain thereafter, New Delhi opposing it.
Thursday's attack coincided with the end of an annual two-month Hindu pilgrimage to a cave shrine in the lower Himalayas.
Pilgrims had been deprived of it for the past two years due to the confinements imposed to fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
India's Hindu nationalist government had hoped to see a million people attend, but only 300,000 turned out, officials say.