20 killed as fighting rages across Kashmir

At least 20 people have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir in some of the fiercest fighting this year in the restive state, police said yesterday, as authorities braced for more violence.A total of three soldiers and 11 suspected militants died in several clashes south of Srinagar.Six civilians were also killed and dozens injured when police opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who poured onto the streets, throwing stones and chanting slogans against Indian rule.There were also demonstrations in Srinagar. Seven of the militants were killed along with two soldiers in a protracted shootout in the village of Dragad, where helicopters were seen swooping low over the battle zone.Another man, described by the authorities as a militant, was gunned down in a brief exchange of fire in Dialgam.Security forces were still taking fire from gunmen in the village of Kachdora, where one soldier and three insurgents had been killed, police chief Shesh Paul Vaid said.“It is a massive operation. The fight is still on,” Inspector General of Police Swayam Prakash Pani said.S P Vaid, the state director general of police, said the army received information on Saturday night about militants hiding in an area near Dragad village, about 50km south of Srinagar and also in Shopian district.“In Dragad, 7 bodies of militants were recovered including top commanders. They were killed in a gunbattle,” Vaid said, adding that the owner of the house in which the militants were trapped was also killed.Authorities have directed schools and colleges in Kashmir to remain closed today to prevent any recurrence of violence, and restrictions have been imposed in several areas.Train services to south Kashmir have been suspended as a precautionary measure, a railways official said, and Internet services in five districts have also been blocked.In south Kashmir’s Pulwama district the local administration has imposed restrictions on the movement of people and vehicles to prevent any violence.Addressing a joint press conference at Awantipora in Pulwama district, Lt Gen A K Bhatt, commander of the army’s Srinagar-based 15 Corps, said: “Today is a very special day for all our security forces. We have killed several terrorists.”“I appeal to youths not to get lured by weapons. Anybody who uses weapons will be dealt with in the same manner we dealt with the terrorists today.”He said it was was the biggest anti-militancy operation in the Kashmir Valley in a long time.Pakistan condemned the violence as a “mindless killing spree” and said those slaughtered were innocents.“Such cowardly actions of the occupying forces only serve to fortify the resolve of the Kashmiri people,” its foreign office said in a statement yesterday.Last year was the deadliest of this decade in the state, with more than 200 alleged militants killed in a counter-insurgency offensive dubbed “Operation All Out”.That upsurge in violence has escalated in 2018, with 49 militants already killed this year.The weekend clashes were the worst since a three-day skirmish in the forests of northern Kashmir last month left ten dead – five unidentified militants and five government forces.