SRINAGAR, June 3 — Suspected rebels shot dead two men including a bank manager Thursday in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said, as part of a spate of eight targeted killings within a week in the disputed territory.
For more than three decades, rebel groups have fought half a million Indian soldiers deployed in the Muslim-majority territory, demanding independence for Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.
An attacker shot a Hindu bank manager in his office with a pistol in the Kulgam area, a police officer told AFP. He later died in the hospital.
Hours later gunmen struck again, shooting at two Indian migrant labourers in central Kashmir valley as they were returning from a brick kiln where they worked.
“The duo was shifted to hospital for treatment where one among them #succumbed,” police tweeted Thursday.
Hundreds of thousands Indian workers travel to restive Kashmir valley every year in search of better wages.
On Tuesday a Hindu female schoolteacher was also shot dead by suspected anti-India militants in the same area.
Last week suspected militants shot and killed three off-duty policemen and a television actress, all Muslims, in three separate assassination-style attacks.
Days before that, a Hindu government employee was shot dead inside his office by gunmen who police said belonged to Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba.
The Resistance Front (TRF) rebel group claimed responsibility for the death of the bank manager on its Telegram channel, although it later deleted the post. The claim could not be independently verified.
Last year TRF claimed responsibility for a string of other killings including of policemen, minority Hindus and a female Sikh teacher, accusing them of working for the security forces.
Police later said all militants responsible for the killings were “eliminated”.
The killings evoked widespread condemnation from both pro-India politicians and separatist groups.
The relatively new TRF surfaced after August 2019, when Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government dissolved the partial autonomy of Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The change allowed all Indians for the first time to buy land in the territory and extended to them domicile rights earlier reserved for its permanent residents.
Tension has run high since then, with many accusing New Delhi of “settler colonialism” aimed at effecting a demographic change in the highly militarised territory.
Indian-administered Kashmir is also claimed by Pakistan, which controls part of the region.
The conflict over the previous three decades has left tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels dead. — AFP
