SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — At least seven Indian soldiers were killed after militants stormed an army camp in Indian-administered Kashmir with grenades and gunfire, the military said Tuesday.
The militants took 16 hostages, officials said, all of whom were rescued after a fierce gun battle, the North Command added.
Three of the militants were killed in the attack, which was located in Jammu’s Nagrota area. The attacks were disguised in police uniforms when they entered the camp. In September, militants attacked a base in Uri, killing 19 soldiers, which led to a spike in cross-border tensions between India and Pakistan.
India, in response to the Uri attack, which they blamed Pakistan for, carried out a series of “surgical strikes” across the border. The army said, at the time, it had destroyed “terrorist launching pads,” which they said were used by militants with support from Pakistan, which vehemently denied the allegations.
Tuesday’s attackers first made their way to an officers’ mess complex, killing one officer and three soldiers who tried to repel them. They proceeded to take 12 soldiers, two women and two children, hostage. The morning strike came a month after a similar attack in Baramulla, where one border guard was killed and another wounded.
Separately, also on Tuesday, Indian border forces killed three suspected militants trying to cross the border from Pakistan, officials said.
Tensions between India and Pakistan, both nations with nuclear capabilities, have skyrocketed since the aforementioned Uri attack.
Last week, officials in Pakistan said at least nine people were killed and 11 others injured after an incident of cross-border shelling struck a passenger bus in the disputed region. India had earlier promised to avenge the deaths of three soldiers, one whose body they said had been mutilated.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training insurgents fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan, a claim Pakistan denies.
