Nearly daylong gunbattle between suspected insurgents and troops ends in Indian Kashmir

Nearly daylong gunbattle in Indian Kashmir ends

SRINAGAR, India — Government forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Thursday ended a more than 20-hour-long gunbattle with suspected rebels by killing the two attackers, police said.

Early Thursday, troops entered the hotel in Srinagar, the region’s main city, where the rebels had taken shelter after an initial attack Wednesday, said police official Farooq Ahmed.

Government soldiers were now searching the area for any leftover explosives and any other suspicious items, Ahmed said.

He said one soldier and one civilian were killed in the fighting, and the 10 wounded included four soldiers.

One portion of the hotel, which is located in the usually crowded Lal Chowk area in the heart of the city, caught fire during the prolonged gunbattle between the rebels and troops. Fire engines were trying to douse the flames.

The wounded civilians, who were hospitalized with bullet and shrapnel wounds, included a cameraman from a television news channel, said police officer Sajad Ahmed.

The rebels entered a crowded shopping area in Srinagar on Wednesday afternoon and hurled hand grenades and opened fire at a group of soldiers, according to the police official, Farooq Ahmed.

Dozens of armored vehicles swarmed Lal Chowk, which was closed off to the public after the attack.

The attack is the first such in Srinagar since 2006, when violence in the region began to decline.

Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen, one of the rebel groups active in the area, on Wednesday claimed responsibility for the attack by faxing a statement to the local offices of Press Trust of India news agency.

“The attack is in response to India’s propaganda that the armed struggle has weakened in Kashmir,” the statement said.

After the attack began on Wednesday, hundreds of locals gathered on the edges of the district and chanted pro-independence slogans and clashed with troops, forcing them to use bamboo batons and tear gas to disperse them.

Anti-India sentiments run deep in the region, where more than a dozen rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India, or its merger with neighboring Pakistan since 1989. More than 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

“We can only say that if there is no political solution to the (Kashmir) problem, these attacks are bound to happen,” said Sakeel Ahmed Bhat, a software engineer with a shop in the area where the attack took place.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, and both claim it in its entirety. The longtime rivals have fought two wars over its control since they won independence from Britain in 1947.

The two sides began talks aimed at resolving Kashmir and other disputes in 2004 but India put the peace process on hold soon after terror attacks in Mumbai in November last year, which India blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.