Assailants kill 3 ruling BJP politicians in restive Kashmir

Gunmen in India’s restive Kashmir region have killed three local politicians from the country’s far-right ruling party with police accusing combatants fighting for independence in the disputed area bordering Pakistan.

Police said the assailants gunned down on Thursday night three members of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kashmir’s southern Kulgam district, adding that they died after being transferred to a hospital.

Police further stated that government troops were engaged in a search operation to find the shooters, but did not elaborate on other details.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, which came just two days after New Delhi imposed new laws in the restive region allowing non-local citizens to purchase land in Kashmir, aggravating existing concerns from residents and rights groups that regard such measures as a deliberate strategy to change the demographics of the Muslim-majority region.

The attack took place shortly after police arrested, earlier in the day, several pro-India Kashmiri politicians who oppose the new land laws as they tried to protest the policy in the region’s main city of Srinagar.

Condemning the incident as a “barbaric terror attack,” BJP confirmed in a Twitter post that the killed politicians were members of its youth wing and that one of them was general secretary of the party’s  branch in Kulgam district.

This is while a local BJP spokesman, Altaf Thakur, stated that the extremist party has so far lost nine of its members in armed attacks this year. In July, assailants shot and killed a top politician along with his father and brother, who were also party members.

SS