SRINAGAR, India — The Indian army said two of its soldiers were killed in an ambush by suspected insurgents on Saturday even as troops traded gunfire with Pakistani forces across a cease-fire line dividing Kashmir between the two rivals.
Col. Rajesh Kalia, an army spokesman, said the insurgents fired indiscriminately at an army convoy on a key highway, wounding four other soldiers in the southern Qazigund area in the Indian portion of Kashmir. The wounded were evacuated to an army hospital.
Indian security forces launched a search for the attackers, who fled after the attack. The area is 80 km south of Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Earlier, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry accused India of resorting to “unprovoked” firing in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, wounding two villagers on the Pakistani side.
The two sides blamed each other for “unprovoked” firing. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria condemned what he called “deliberate targeting of civilians” by India.
He said the latest violation of the 2003 ceasefire agreement by India took place Friday. Pakistan’s military said it returned fire after coming under attack in Kashmir’s Nazapir border village in Tatta Pani area and killed five Indian soldiers and wounded several others, which the Indian army did not confirm.
The two armies often blame each other for starting the firing across the cease-fire line. They also claim killing soldiers on the other side.
Nazapir is the same area where Indian forces in 2015 used heavy weapons as people celebrated the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, triggering skirmishes in which several Pakistanis were killed or wounded.
Lt. Col. Manish Mehta, an Indian army spokesman, said Pakistani soldiers have resorted to unprovoked cease-fire violations by attacking Indian positions for several days in the region, firing automatic rifles and mortars. “The Indian army posts are retaliating strongly and effectively,” he said. The latest exchange of gunfire took place on Friday and Saturday, he said.
Meanwhile, India’s anti-terrorism agency on Saturday searched the homes of separatist leaders in restive Kashmir as part of an investigation of their finances and alleged anti-government activities.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) agency is probing if the separatists received funds illegally from Pakistan-based extremists to carry out “subversive activities” including stone pelting and arson.
In an early morning crackdown in the main city of Srinagar, NIA sleuths targeted several separatist leaders and businessmen, as well as the son-in-law of hardline leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, police sources confirmed.
Eight locations in the capital Delhi were also raided.
The NIA last month launched a preliminary enquiry into the sources of funding of separatist leaders including Geelani, Naeem Khan and Farooq Ahmed Dar.
The agency is investigating if the leaders received funds from Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, a firebrand cleric who heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) group, and other Pakistan-based militant outfits.
The US and India consider JuD, listed as a terror outfit by the United Nations, to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group blamed for the 2008 attack on India’s financial capital which killed more than 160 people.
Indian-administered Kashmir has been tense since April 9, when eight people were killed by police and paramilitary forces during election day violence.
Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the valley, where most people favor independence or a merger with predominantly Muslim Pakistan. — Agencies
