OCCUPIED SRINAGAR: Two soldiers were killed in Indian-Illegally Held Kashmir (IIOJK) on Friday, with the army blaming the deaths on an explosive device triggered by militants in the disputed territory.

The Indian army has been conducting search operations in Rajouri district near the Pakistan border since last month to hunt rebels it blamed for an attack on an army truck that killed five troops. A search team “established contact with a group of terrorists well entrenched in a cave” in an area “thickly vegetated with rocky and steep cliffs”, the army said in a statement.

The suspected rebels then triggered an explosive device that killed two and injured four other soldiers, it said. AFP could not independently verify the incident.

Anger against Indian rule in Kashmir has simmered since 2019 when New Delhi cancelled the region’s partial autonomy.

Since 1989, rebel groups have fought some 500,000 Indian soldiers deployed in the Indian-controlled territory, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan. Tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels have been killed so far.