Officials fear the rebels could step up attacks to draw
attention to the unrest in the disputed Himalayan region while Obama is
visiting this week.
“They’re also trying to create a situation where they may
blame security forces for their actions,” senior police officer Shiv Murari
Sahai said.
Indian paramilitary troops were on alert. “We are in
constant touch with the state police, and all necessary arrangements have been
made to maintain law and order and to combat militancy,” said Anirudh Uppal,
the force chief in Kashmir.
Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the majority Muslim
region, where more than a dozen rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir’s
independence or its merger with neighboring Pakistan since 1989.
The seven militants killed by police and army troops this
week across Kashmir were targeted based on intelligence information, Sahai
said.
No rebel group has commented on the latest battles, although
an umbrella organization of more than a dozen Kashmiri rebel groups recently
said it was limiting operations to border areas until after Obama’s visit to
Mumbai and Delhi on Saturday through Tuesday.
“We’ve reports that (intelligence) agencies are up to some
mischief and if something untoward happens (during the President Obama’s visit)
it should not be attributed to militants,” the United Jehad Council said in a
recent statement.
With the rebellion largely suppressed, resistance to Indian
rule has taken the form of near-daily street demonstrations over the past three
years. Anti-India protests and subsequent government crackdowns since June have
left 111 people dead, mostly teenage boys and young men in their 20s.
Separatists have called strikes, and authorities have
imposed curfews in an attempt to stop protests.
Two clashes broke out Wednesday in Srinagar between police
and stone-throwing youths chanting pro-independence slogans. Police used tear
gas and batons to break up the crowds, a police officer said on condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with media. No one was
reported injured.
