2 Indian soldiers, 2 porters killed in Kashmir attack

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir

Two Indian army soldiers and two civilian porters working for them were killed and four other soldiers injured in an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir on Thursday.

A police official told Anadolu that militants attacked a truck in which the porters and soldiers were traveling in Botapathri, a mountainous area of the famed skiing spot Gulmarg. The injured soldiers are being treated at a hospital.

This is the second major attack in the past four days. On Oct. 20, two suspected militants attacked a construction site, killing six non-local laborers and a local doctor.

The attack was carried out on a prefabricated hut for the laborers who were working on a tunnel project, one of the two such projects aimed at building all-weather road connectivity to the strategically sensitive Ladakh region, which borders China and where an altercation between the armies of the two nations in 2020 had soured their relations.

The new government, the first elected government since 2018, condemned the attack, blaming it on Pakistan. The region’s Lt. Governor, Manoj Sinha, said the killings will be avenged.

Early Thursday morning, another non-local laborer was shot at and injured in the southern Tral area.

Dozens of non-local laborers, a few employees and businessmen have been killed by suspected militants since Aug. 5, 2019, when India scrapped the disputed Muslim-majority region’s autonomy.

The rightwing Indian government also scrapped residency laws that had barred outsiders from buying property or taking government employment in the region, raising fears among the locals that they would be reduced into a minority through demographic changes.