SRINAGAR, India: Ambushes, firefights and a market grenade blast: headline-grabbing attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir are designed to challenge New Delhi’s bid to portray normality in the disputed territory, Indian security officials say.
Kashmir has been divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan since their partition at the chaotic end of British rule in 1947, and both countries claim the territory in full.
“The attacks are not merely about killing, but also to set a narrative to counter the Indian narrative — that everything is fine,” said the former head of India’s Northern Command forces, retired general Deependra Singh Hooda.
Half a million Indian troops are deployed in the far northern region, battling a 35-year insurgency in which tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels have been killed, including at least 120 this year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government canceled the Muslim-majority region’s partial autonomy in 2019, a decision accompanied by mass arrests and a months-long communications blackout.
The territory of around 12 million people has since been ruled by a governor appointed by New Delhi, overseeing the local government that voters elected in October in opposition to Modi.
New Delhi insists it helped bring “peace, development and prosperity” to the region.
But military experts say that small bands of rebels — demanding either independence or Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan — use attacks to contradict the claims.
“The larger message being sent out is that the problem in Kashmir is alive,” Hooda said.
India blames Pakistan for arming militants and helping them “infiltrate” across the militarzed dividing line to launch attacks, an allegation Islamabad denies.
A “spurt in infiltration” this year by insurgents was “not possible without Pakistan’s army actively allowing it,” Hooda charged.
Many clashes take place in forested mountains far from larger settlements.
But the huge military presence visible in sprawling camps and roadblocks, roughly one in every 25 people in Kashmir is an Indian soldier, serves as a constant reminder.
Many are frustrated by traffic jams caused by military orders that civilian cars stay at least 500 meters (1,640 feet) away from army vehicles.
Yet those who have long lived under the shadow of the grinding insurgency seemingly shrug off the threat.
When an attacker this month hurled a grenade at security forces in a busy market — killing a woman and wounding 11 civilians — shoppers returned within a couple of hours.
This month, thousands attended an army recruitment drive, even as soldiers battled gunmen in a nearby district.
Attacks appear dramatic, including a gunbattle in downtown Srinagar in early November that police said killed a commander of the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group.
Earlier this year, attacks in the Jammu area — a Hindu-majority region — prompted the army to supply thousands of militia forces, dubbed village defense guards, with rifles.
But the death toll of 120 civilians, soldiers and rebels killed this year is, so far, similar in intensity to 2023, when 130 people died, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a New Delhi-based monitoring group.
“It will remain like this on low boil, as long as Kashmir is divided (between India and Pakistan),” a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.
“We control it here; they (Pakistan) will activate it from there.”
The Indian army says around 720 rebels have been killed in the past five years.
Regional army commander MV Suchindra Kumar said in October he believed fewer than 130 remained in the fight.
Another security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said those include “highly trained and well-armed” fighters who had crossed from Pakistan.
“They are causing some damage by surprise attacks,” the official said. “But the situation is under control.”
Hooda, drawing on his long experience as a general, predicts little change as long as violence serves the agenda of India’s rival Islamabad.
“I don’t see this coming down immediately,” he said, referring to the number of attacks.
“Pakistan has always felt that ratcheting up attacks will bring the spotlight on Kashmir.”
Rebel attacks blamed on Pakistan keep Indian-administered Kashmir on the boil
https://arab.news/2qevk
Rebel attacks blamed on Pakistan keep Indian-administered Kashmir on the boil
- India blames Pakistan for arming militants and helping them “infiltrate” across the militarzed border
- Pakistan denies it supports militants, says it only offers moral and diplomatic support to Kashmiri people
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
