Indian security forces have killed three suspected rebels in India-administered Kashmir during fighting in a national park, the military says.
The incident occurred on Monday in the mountains of Dachigam, about 30km (18 miles) east of the disputed region’s main city of Srinagar.
“Three terrorists have been neutralised in an intense firefight,” the Indian army said in a statement on social media. “Operation continues.”
Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and the South Asian nuclear powers, which both claim Kashmir in full, have fought three wars over its control.
Since 1989, Kashmiri rebels have been fighting against Indian rule, demanding independence or the region’s merger with Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of backing the rebellion, but Islamabad says it only provides diplomatic support to the Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination.
Indian media reports said the three men killed on Monday were suspected to be behind the April 22 attack in India-administered Kashmir’s resort town of Pahalgam, which killed 26 people.
Al Jazeera could not immediately verify the involvement of the men in the April attack, which sparked a four-day military conflict with Pakistan that killed more than 70 people on both sides.
The Indian military did not immediately identify those killed on Monday, but a police officer told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity that they were all “foreigners”.
This month, the United States designated The Resistance Front (TRF), the group accused of being behind the Pahalgam attack, as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.
Monday’s incident took place near the Hindu shrine of Amarnath, to which more than 350,000 people from across India have travelled as part of an annual pilgrimage that began on July 3.
Fighting between rebels and Indian government forces in India-administered Kashmir has drastically declined during the past five years, but many local fighters have been killed since the Pahalgam attack, according to officials.
India denies US claims
In a related development, India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said New Delhi had ended its military conflict with Pakistan in May as it had met all its objectives and had not responded to any outside pressure.
Singh’s remarks during a discussion in parliament on the April 22 attack effectively rejected US President Donald Trump’s claim that he brokered the truce between the two neighbours.
“India halted its operation because all the political and military objectives studied before and during the conflict had been fully achieved,” Singh said. “To suggest that the operation was called off under pressure is baseless and entirely incorrect.”
New Delhi has said Pakistani nationals were involved in the Pahalgam killings. Pakistan denied involvement and sought an independent investigation.
In their military conflict in May, the two sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and other munitions, killing dozens of people, before Trump announced they had agreed to a ceasefire.
Pakistan thanked Trump for brokering the agreement, but India said the US had no hand in it and that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed between themselves to end the fighting.
Indian opposition groups have questioned what they say is the intelligence failure behind the Pahalgam attack and the government’s inability to capture the assailants – issues they are expected to raise during the parliament discussion.
They have also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for coming under pressure from Trump and agreeing to end the fighting, along with reports that Indian jets were shot down during the fighting.
Pakistan claimed it downed five Indian planes in combat, and India’s highest ranking general admitted suffering “initial losses in the air,” but declined to give details.
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