At least 10 people were killed on Thursday inKashmir when gunmen attacked an Indian Army base near the border with Pakistan, just as leaders of the two longtime rivals were exchanging pleasantries in Nepal.
Four or five gunmen who were split in two groups attacked an army bunker in the town of Arnia, about three miles from the border, and fought a gun battle with the police while holed up in a house, a senior army officer told Reuters.
The militants killed three soldiers and three civilians before at least four of them were killed as well, the chief minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, told Reuters.
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir, which both countries claim in full but share its territory. India has long accused Pakistan of arming and training militants to attack India, and dozens of militants have confirmed over the years that they trained in camps in Pakistan-controlled territory. Pakistan denies arming militants.
The gunmen did not infiltrate from the Pakistani side of the border, a senior official from India’s Border Security Force told Reuters.
Such attacks tend to occur when the leaders of India and Pakistan are meeting, perhaps in hopes of disrupting any movement toward peace.
The attack on Thursday occured while Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan shook hands and exchanged pleasantries at an informal retreat of South Asian leaders during a summit meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The two men did not hold substantive talks, and little was accomplished during the summit meeting besides an electricity cooperation agreement that still needs to be signed by all the leaders.
“Our achievements stand short of expectations,” Sushil Koirala, Nepal’s prime minister and the chairman of the regional organization, said in a news conference on Thursday evening.
India says that Pakistan must end its longtime consultations with Kashmiri separatist leaders before it will agree to bilateral discussions, a demand that Pakistan has refused.
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