Kashmir Attack Leaves 8 Indian Soldiers Dead

By NIHARIKA MANDHANA
NEW DELHI—Eight soldiers were killed and three injured when an Indian army convoy was attacked Monday near Hyderpora on the outskirts of Srinagar, a day before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to visit Kashmir to launch new development initiatives.
The attack was the second on security forces in Kashmir in recent days. On June 22, militants shot and killed two police officers in Srinagar, the state’s summer capital.

European Pressphoto Agency
Indian soldiers take position to secure the surrounding of a militant attack.

“This is a clear message that the Indian government is not welcome in Kashmir,” said Radha Kumar, the director-general of the Delhi Policy Group and one of three interlocutors appointed by the Indian government in 2010 to draw a road map for peace in Jammu and Kashmir state. “This is an effort to intimidate people into staying in their homes to sabotage the prime minister’s visit.”
A search operation is under way to arrest suspected militants, an army spokesperson, said late Monday. “We don’t have any information about who carried out the attacks,” Naresh Vig added.
The attack occurred on the second day of a three-day visit to India by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a day after he urged Pakistan and India to forge better relations.
The Himalayan territory of Kashmir has long been a cause of dispute between India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947. Both countries occupy parts of it but claim it in its entirety.
In Indian-held Kashmir, militants have for more than two decades fought for separation from India or a merger with Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Pakistan trained and financed thousands of militants who infiltrated Indian-held Kashmir in the 1990s during the fiercest fighting with Indian security forces. In recent years, violence has decreased amid a massive buildup in Indian security forces.
The number of militants active in the state has greatly reduced since 2010, and Srinagar has remained largely peaceful, security officials in Jammu and Kashmir said.
But the latest attack shows militants still pose a threat. It is likely to further reduce the possibility of India scaling back its security presence in Kashmir, which some local politicians say is crucial to reduce separatist tensions.
In the past two years, authorities have removed bunkers and checkpoints from downtown Srinagar and a sense of normalcy had returned. Tourists from other parts of India have returned to take vacations in Kashmir.
Omar Abdullah, the state’s chief minister, has regularly cited the relative lack of violence to back his call for the partial lifting of a law that gives immunity from prosecution to army personnel serving in Kashmir and is deeply unpopular among local people.
India’s Defense Ministry and army have maintained the law is necessary to effectively fight militancy in the region, which they acknowledge is less of a threat but hasn’t been entirely stamped out.
Pakistan continues to back militants, they say, a contention Islamabad denies.
“Such high-profile attacks are aimed at restoring the shattered morale of the militants, while trying to demoralize the security forces,” a post from Mr. Abdullah’s Twitter account said after Monday’s attack.
In May, suspected militants killed five military personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force, a paramilitary organization, after India in February executed Mohammad Afzal Guru, a former member of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, for his role in a 2001 attack on India’s Parliament in which 14 people, including five militants, were killed.
“If this goes on, it will have a disturbing psychological impact on Kashmiris,” said Gul Mohammad Wani, a political-science professor at Kashmir University.
Write to Niharika Mandhana at Niharika.Mandhana@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared June 25, 2013, on page A9 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Attack in Kashmir Leaves Eight Indian Soldiers Dead.

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