SRINAGAR: Indian security forces killed seven suspected fighters in two clashes as occupied Kashmir saw some of its worst fighting in over seven months, police said on Friday.

Five Kashmiri fighters were killed in the southern town of Shopian during one shootout that started on Thursday, triggering anti-India protests in the area.

The five became trapped in a raid by security forces and two took shelter in a mosque in the disputed region. Police said that officers sent the brother of one of the two into the mosque in a bid to persuade them to “surrender” but they refused.

“The five militants killed in the encounter include the chief of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind,” a police officer said.

Police had previously said that Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, one of a host of groups fighting Indian rule, was wiped out last year.

Two other fighters were killed in a separate gun battle in the Tral area of southern Kashmir, police said.

Police declined, however, to give details of how the fighters died inside the mosque. Senior police officers were told this week to stop journalists going close to the sites of fighting or protests.

Several journalists’ groups have expressed concern at the police move. One joint statement said “it appears to be a tactic to coerce journalists into not reporting facts on the ground”.

Kashmiri fighters regularly clash with the 500,000-strong Indian forces in the occupied territory but Friday was the deadliest day since August last year when 15 militants were killed in three shootouts over two days. It was also one of the deadliest since New Delhi brought the region under direct rule in August 2019 after cancelling its semi-autonomous status.

Kashmiri groups launched an armed campaign against Indian rule in 1989, seeking independence for Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.

Tens of thousands have died in the fighting, most of them civilians.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2021