In Indian-administered Kashmir, gunmen assaulted a bus transporting Hindu pilgrims; the bus then crashed into a ravine, killing at least nine people, according to police on Sunday.
The incident happened about an hour before Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the oath of office in New Delhi on Sunday night for a third term.
“Initial reports suggest that militants were waiting there in an ambush and they fired on the bus,” police officer Mohita Sharma told AFP.
“The driver lost control and fell into the deep gorge. Nine people died and 23 were injured.”
The bus was returning from a well-known Hindu shrine in the area when it crashed close to Reasi town, in the southern part of the disputed territory.
Mallikarjun Kharge, the head of the opposition Congress party, denounced the “gruesome terror attack” in a social media post on platform X.
PM Modi’s “chest-thumping propaganda of bringing peace and normalcy… rings hollow” , he stated.
Since their independence in 1947, India and Pakistan have partitioned Kashmir, and both countries fully claim the high-altitude region.
Since 1989, rebel organizations have been fighting for independence or a union with Pakistan.
Tens of thousands of rebels, troops, and civilians have perished in the fighting.
Since the Modi administration revoked the region’s limited autonomy in 2019, there has been a sharp decline in violence and anti-India demonstrations.
During the election campaign that started in the region in April and finished this month with voting, five rebels and a corporal in the Indian air force were killed in hostilities. On June 3, two suspected rebels and soldiers engaged in gunfire, resulting in their deaths.
However, the electoral commission reports that 58.6 percent of voters cast ballots, which is the largest turnout in 35 years and a 30-percentage-point increase from the last 2019 elections.
This was the first election boycott called for by a separatist faction since the territory’s armed uprising against Indian authority in 1989.
Pakistan is frequently accused by India of equipping and aiding the rebels; Islamabad refutes these accusations.
