NEW DELHI — Three suspected militants killed in a gunbattle in the disputed region of Kashmir were responsible for a shooting massacre in which more than two dozen people died and that led to a military clash between India and Pakistan earlier this year, a Indian government official said Tuesday. The Pakistani nationals were killed Monday in a joint operation by the military, paramilitary and police on the outskirts of Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar, Home Minister Amit Shah said in India’s lower house of parliament. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the details. Rifle cartridges found at the site matched those used during the killings in April, Shah said. The bodies of the men were identified by residents who had provided food and shelter to them before they carried out the massacre, he said. It wasn’t clear whether the locals were considered accomplices. There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s government. But state-run Pakistan Radio reported after the gunbattle on Monday 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 from Indian jails and killing them in faked shootouts while passing off them as combatants. New Delhi has regularly rejected these allegations and accused Pakistan of sending armed militants into India and orchestrating attacks. The massacre more than three months ago killed 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists. India 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 days of fighting between the nuclear-armed rivals was their worst in decades. Before the April 22 killings in the Kashmiri resort town of Pahalgam, fighting had largely ebbed in the region’s Kashmir Valley, the heartland of an 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 — an accusation that Islamabad denies. 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. ___ Munir Ahmed contributed to this report from Islamabad. Sheikh Saaliq, The Associated Press
