Kashmir rebel group says border killings ‘are stage-managed’

SRINAGAR: A hardline rebel group in Indian Kashmir on Thursday accused Indian troops of killing arrested rebels near the de facto border with Pakistan and presenting them as “infiltrators”.

Police have reported a wave of insurgency since the winter snows began melting in the Himalayas, allowing rebels to sneak through from Pakistan-administered Kashmir into the Indian zone of the disputed state. In the past 10 days alone, more than 24 rebels have been killed at various parts of the state, according to the police. “Indian troops kill arrested militants along the Line of Control to hoodwink the international community and to defame Pakistan,” the operational chief of the pro-Pakistan rebel group Tehreek-ul-Mujahedin, Abdul Rub, told the Current News Service.

The nearly 750-km (460-mile) LoC divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, and New Delhi accuses Islamabad of sending in armed militants through the LoC into the Indian side of Kashmir to fight what New Delhi terms a “proxy war”. “These militants are brought to the borders from various jails and other places and killed,” he said. “The slain men are later presented as infiltrators.” He said 18 militants killed along the LoC last week in Poonch, were arrested on January 6 and later “eliminated near the LoC”. —AFP

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