Srinagar - Security forces in Indian Kashmir have gunned down a terrorist accused of attacking local members of the local minority community, killing an armed forces personnel and targeting non-Kashmiris, the police said on Wednesday.

Mukhtar Bhat, who according to the Indian authorities was part of the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), “was involved in the killing of an assistant sub inspector of CRPF personnel and an attack on two migrant labourers,” an official, who asked not to be named as he is not authorized to talk to the media, told EFE.

“Mukhtar Bhat, along with a foreigner, Mushfiq, were going for a suicide attack on a security force camp,” he added.

Bhat and Mushfiq were killed on Monday, along with two other insurgents, in operations in Awantipora, in Pulwama district, according to a tweet by the Kashmir Police.

The security forces on Tuesday claimed to have arrested three LeT insurgents in an operation in which they recovered 10 kilos of explosives in Srinagar, the region’s main city.

Jammu Kashmir Police chief Dilbagh Singh told reporters on Sunday that they were looking to “wipe out” terrorism from “its roots.”

“Police and other security forces are working in tandem to wipe out terrorism from its roots,” he said, adding that “this year, so far, 40 foreign terrorists have been killed which has brought down the local recruitment of youth into terrorist ranks.”

On Oct. 18, two migrant workers were killed in a grenade attack in Indian Kashmir, in what was the latest targeted attack by insurgents on non-Kashmiri or Hindu residents to intimidate outsiders into fleeing this Muslim-majority region.

Such attacks have been on the rise in the region since August 2019, when the government of the Hindu nationalist party BJP withdrew Indian Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status.

The resurgence of attacks also coincides with the government’s rush to take greater control of the region, by reforming local norms, which it claims will serve to promote development.

In this regard, the government has now allowed individuals and firms from outside the region to enter and settle down, something not permitted earlier owing to its their special status.

The move is seen by critics as a way to change the demography of this Muslim-majority region.