Kashmir sees upsurge in violence

SRINAGAR, May 26 (Reuters/ AP): Indian security forces have killed six militants in Kashmir in the past 24 hours while militants shot dead a female TV performer and a police officer, officials said on Thursday, following the conviction of the region's best-known separatist.
A New Delhi court on Wednesday ordered life in jail for Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik for funding "terrorist" activities and for many other crimes. The sentencing prompted warnings from politicians that it would promote alienation and separatism in India's only Muslim-majority region.
Shops and businesses in Kashmir remained closed for a second day of protesting against the verdict, while police detained 10 people for throwing stones and for sloganeering outside Malik's residence.
India and Pakistan each rule part of Kashmir and claim it in full. Mainly Hindu India has been fighting an armed insurgency in its portion of the region since the late 1980s.
"Three militants each of Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba were killed in two separate gun battles in Kashmir since yesterday," Kashmir Police Chief Vijay Kumar told Reuters, referring to two militant organisations. "We have also lost a cop in one of the operations."
Kumar said militants had also shot dead 35-year-old television and social-media performer Amreen Bhat on Wednesday evening.
Militants have killed more than a dozen people, mostly police, in Kashmir this year. One of the dead was a Kashmiri Hindu government employee, worrying the region's tiny minority community.
More than 3,400 Hindus from Kashmir have been given government jobs there in recent years, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has tried to lure them back into the region after militant attacks forced them to flee in 1990.
An AP report adds: Police in disputed Kashmir arrested at least 10 youths during overnight raids following an anti-India protest that erupted as an Indian court sentenced a prominent Kashmiri pro-independence leader to life in prison, officials said Thursday.
The protest was followed by a clash between dozens of youths and government forces that broke out as an Indian court on Wednesday sentenced Mohammed Yasin Malik to imprisonment for life.
Malik, 56, led the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, one of the first armed rebel groups in the Indian-held area, but later shifted to peaceful means in seeking the end of Indian rule. Malik was arrested in 2019 and was convicted last week on charges of committing terrorist acts, illegally raising funds, belonging to a terrorist organisation.