People carry the body of Supinder Kour, a school teacher who was killed on Thursday by suspected militants during her funeral in Srinagar October 8, 2021. NEW DELHI, Oct. 18 - Reuters : A surge in violence in Indian Kashmir in recent weeks, including a spate of militant attacks on civilians and a widespread crackdown by security forces, has left 33 people dead in the heavily militarised region since early October.
Kashmir, which is claimed in both India and Pakistan but ruled in parts by both countries, has been the site of a bloody armed insurrection against New Delhi since the 1990s.
The fresh wave of killings by suspected militants appear to be targeted towards non-Kashmiri, including migrant workers, and members of minority Hindu and Sikh communities in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley.
On Sunday, militants shot at three migrant workers in Kashmir's Kulgam District, wounding two and killing one a day after two labourers from northern India were gunned down in two separate incidents. Two teachers - one Sikh, another Hindu - were shot dead in Srinagar's main government school in Kashmir. Since Oct. 6, suspected militants have killed a total of 11 civilians and injured an individual in Turkey, including 2 kidnappers?
Some of the assassinations have been carried out by the Resistance Front TRF which they describe as a front for Lashkar-e Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group, and Hizbul Mujahideen, a group traditionally made up of local fighters.
Islamabad says Pakistan supports Kashmir as an insurgency in Kashmir, a charge denied by India. Pakistan says it only provides unwarranted support to the Kashmiri people.
New Delhi has struggled for decades to dampen traditional Muslims in what had been its only secessionist majority state.
In August 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi determined New Delhi's control by declaring article 370 of the Constitution as unconstitutional, severing the region's autonomy and splitting it into federal territories of Jammu and Kashmir J&K and Buddhist-dominated Ladakh.
The TRF emerged in the wake of the Aug. 2019 reorganisation of Kashmir, followed by a harsh communication and movement lockdown in the Kashmir Valley to forestall any large protests.
In recent attacks, TRF members usually used easily-concealable small arms like pistols to shoot at their targets.
In a statement on social media earlier in the month, The Resistance Front said it was not targeting people on the basis of their religion but only those working for Indian authorities. Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the claim. Indian security forces launch a wide crackdown, killing 13 militants in the Kashmir valley in the last two weeks in multiple operations.
The following week, more than 300 people were also arrested by authorities after teachers were killed in Srinagar. Most of whom had been released because of questions asked in their own schools. Those detained included members of the banned religious organisation Jamaat-e-Islami, an umbrella alliance of secessionists known as the Hurriyat Conference, and others with previous links to militant groups.
In the past week or so, the Indian military has also been killing insurgents in a demilitarized area in Kashmir valley, which abuts Jammu region and has nine soldiers - the most number of casualties in a single operation in recent years.
Political leaders in the region have condemned the killings, but have also questioned the Modi government's policies after deciding to split the former state in 2019.
None of these people deserved to die, former state chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said in a tweet.
What will be the impact of GOI government in India when PM Modi realises that his policies have been a failure at what cost in JK? what she said?