India says 3 militants killed in Kashmir were behind massacre that sparked clash with Pakistan

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s home minister said Tuesday that three suspected militants killed in a gunfight in disputed Kashmir the day before were responsible for the gun massacre in the region that led to a military clash between India and Pakistan earlier this year.

Amit Shah said the three men were Pakistani nationals who were killed Monday in a joint operation by the military, paramilitary and police on the outskirts of Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar. Shah made the remarks in India’s lower house of the parliament. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the details.

Shah said rifle cartridges found at the site of Monday’s fighting matched those used during the Srinagar attack. He also said the bodies of the men were identified by residents who had provided food and shelter to them before they carried out the massacre in April. It was not clear whether the locals were considered accomplices.

There was no immediate response from Islamabad.

However, after the gun battle on Monday, state-run Pakistan Radio claimed that India had planned “fake encounters” targeting Pakistani nationals held in Indian prisons. It provided no further details.

Pakistan has long accused India of staging gunbattles in Kashmir and sometimes pulling Pakistani prisoners out from Indian jails and killing them in faked gunfights while passing them as combatants. New Delhi has regularly rejected these allegations and accused Pakistan of sending armed militants into India and orchestrating attacks.

The April gun massacre killed 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists. New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, which denied responsibility while calling for a neutral investigation. It led to tit-for-tat military strikes by India and Pakistan that brought the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of their third war over the region. Dozens of people were killed on both sides until a ceasefire was reached on May 10 after U.S. mediation.

The four-day fighting between the nuclear-armed rivals was their worst in decades.

Before the April gun massacre in the Kashmiri resort town of Pahalgam, fighting had largely ebbed in the region’s Kashmir Valley, the heartland of anti-India rebellion and mainly shifted to the mountainous areas of Jammu in the last few years.

India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989.

India describes militancy in Kashmir as Pakistan-backed terrorism. Pakistan denies it.

Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

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Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan. contributed to this report.

Sheikh Saaliq, The Associated Press