Violence claimed the lives of 10 people in Kashmir ahead of India’s republic day, while Indian troops captured a man believed to be a militant commander who had evaded arrest for 12 years.Five Muslim militants and an Indian soldier were killed in Jammu and Kashmir and a top militants commander arrested ahead of India’s Republic Day, the police and army said on Wednesday. Four of the militants died in two shootouts with the army in southern Udhampur district and northern Kupwara district late Tuesday, a police spokesman said in Srinagar. “The fighting erupted when soldiers raided militant hideouts,” he said. An Indian soldier and a militant were killed in a similar gunbattle near the town of Tral, 40 kilometres south of Srinagar, on Wednesday, army spokesman Vijay Batra said.
Security forces arrested a top militants commander during a raid Tuesday in southern Anantag district, an army statement said. It said Wasim Malik, also known as Hamza, had been active with the regionÂ’s most powerful militant group Hizbul Mujahedin since 1994. The army said Malik spent five years in militant training camps in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir before being sent to Indian Kashmir in 1999.