NEW DELHI, Feb 8 (1993) – Afghan mujahideen fighters have stepped up attacks on Indian posts in Kashmir in support of a Moslem militant drive for the northern state’s secession, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Monday.
PTI quoted a state government spokesman as saying two Afghan fighters died in an overnight gunbattle with Indian troops. Four others were injured in the firefight and taken in for questioning, the official said in Jammu, Kashmir’s winter capital.
Sunday’s gunbattle in Mendher district followed the death of two Indian soldiers Saturday in a rocket attack on the frontier post by Afghan rebels from the Pakistani part of Kashmir, he said.
The spokesman said rocket attacks, which began on Indian posts in Kashmir on January 4, were proof that Afghan mujahedeen were fighting alongside Moslem rebels campaigning for Kashmir’s secession.
Indian officials have alleged that Afghan mujahedeen were involved in training Kashmiri militants in the Pakistan-controlled northern third of Kashmir.
Security has been strengthened across a line of control dividing the two zones of Kashmir amid fears that hundreds of trained Moslem militants were gathering on the Pakistani side of Kashmir.
