Blast from confiscated explosives at police station in Indian-controlled Kashmir kills nine

The accidental explosion comes days after a deadly car blast in New Delhi which killed at least eight people near the city’s historic Red Fort

At least nine people were killed and 32 injured after a cache of confiscated explosives detonated inside a police station in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police have announced.

The blast occurred in the Nowgam area of Srinagar, the region’s main city, late on Friday while a team of forensic experts and police were examining the explosive material, said Nalin Prabhat, the region’s police director general. He ruled out any foul play, saying it was an accident.

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Kashmir is focus of arrests after Delhi car blast linked to ‘terror module’

Investigators believe an explosion that killed 13 people may be linked to group operating in the disputed region

Police have carried out raids and made several arrests across the Indian region of Kashmir in the aftermath of a car explosion in Delhi that left 13 people dead.

On Wednesday, the Indian government confirmed it was treating the blast as a “terror incident” perpetrated by “anti-national forces”. The explosion took place outside one of India’s most significant monuments during rush hour on Monday evening.

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Ladakh statehood activist arrested days after violent crackdown by Modi

Sonam Wangchuk, who has been agitating against the government, was on his way to speak at a press briefing

A renowned environmentalist at the forefront of a protest movement in the Indian region of Ladakh has been arrested amid a wider crackdown on dissent under the prime minister, Narendra Modi.

Sonam Wangchuk, an activist, engineer and inventor, has been leading a lengthy agitation against the Modi government, calling for statehood and greater protections to be granted to his home region of Ladakh. He was arrested on Friday afternoon, on his way to address a press conference.

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‘Cricket diplomacy’ collapses as India-Pakistan hostility enters field of play

Indian players refuse to shake hands with Pakistani counterparts after Asia Cup match, in sign that traditional onfield camaraderie is eroding

As nationalistic rivalries go, few run as deep as India and Pakistan. But even as the neighbours fought wars against each other, carried out rival nuclear tests and conducted nightly shows of strength along their heavily militarised border, there was always one thing that brought them together: cricket.

But as the two sides came together on Sunday for a match in the Asia Cup tournament, the camaraderie that was once celebrated as cricket diplomacy had vanished.

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Flash flood in Indian Kashmir leaves at least 56 dead and scores missing

People on popular pilgrimage route were washed away by flood waters triggered by cloudburst, officials say

At least 56 people have died and 80 are missing after a sudden rainstorm in Indian Kashmir, the second such disaster in the Himalayas in a little over a week.

The incident in the town of Chashoti, Kishtwar district, occurred at a stopover point on a pilgrimage route. Days earlier, a flood and mudslide engulfed a village in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.

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Arundhati Roy works among dozens of books banned in Indian-administered Kashmir

Censorship order accuses books of promoting ‘false narrative and secessionism’ in disputed territory

The government in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir has banned 25 books, including works by the Booker-prize winning author Arundhati Roy, accusing them of promoting a “false narrative and secessionism” in the disputed territory.

The censorship order was issued by Manoj Sinha, the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir, who was appointed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) under the prime minister, Narendra Modi. Sinha was previously a minister in Modi’s BJP government.

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Indian troops shoot dead Pakistani man crossing frontier, officials say

Incident next to Gujarat border occurs weeks after four-day conflict between countries

Indian border troops have shot dead a Pakistani man they say crossed the international frontier and did not stop when challenged.

The shooting occurred two weeks after conflict erupted between the two nuclear-armed countries that led to four days of violence and more than 70 people being killed before a ceasefire was agreed.

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Indian troops shoot dead Pakistani man crossing frontier, officials say

Incident next to Gujarat border occurs weeks after four-day conflict between countries

Indian border troops have shot dead a Pakistani man they say crossed the international frontier and did not stop when challenged.

The shooting occurred two weeks after conflict erupted between the two nuclear-armed countries that led to four days of violence and more than 70 people being killed before a ceasefire was agreed.

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Uneasy India-Pakistan ceasefire holds but is a return to war inevitable?

Trump’s interventions have infuriated India, which has emerged from conflict not as triumphant as it had hoped

Against the odds, the ceasefire that followed Indian and Pakistan’s almost-war has held; fragile, uneasy but still unbroken. Yet in the aftermath of four days of cross-border drones and missile strikes – the most technologically advanced conflict either side has ever engaged in – the question remains: what now?

While both India and Pakistan have claimed victory, some experts fear that a return to hostilities is almost inevitable.

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India has only ‘paused’ military action against Pakistan, Modi says

Indian PM says he is ‘monitoring every step of Pakistan’ as ceasefire holds

Narendra Modi has said India has only “paused” its military action against Pakistan and would “retaliate on its own terms” to any attacks, after a ceasefire brought escalating hostilities between the two countries to a standstill at the weekend.

In his first address since attacks began between India and Pakistan – culminating in both sides launching missiles at each other’s key military bases and airfields on Saturday – the Indian prime minister said he was “monitoring every step of Pakistan”.

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Amid fragile ceasefire, Trump promises to boost trade with India and Pakistan

Truce agreement was reached after diplomacy and pressure from US but within hours there was cross-border shelling

A fragile ceasefire was holding between India and Pakistan on Sunday, after hours of overnight fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbours, as US president Donald Trump said he would work to provide a solution regarding Kashmir.

The arch-rivals were involved in intense firing for four days, the worst in nearly three decades, with missiles and drones being fired at each other’s military installations and dozens of people killed.

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‘We share a history and the future’: diaspora communities in UK decry Kashmir conflict

At a demonstration in Westminster, people from both sides of India-Pakistan divide call for more than mere ceasefire

People around the world held their breath this week as India and Pakistan appeared to edge closer and closer towards war.

For diaspora communities with family in the region, especially in Kashmir and along the border between the two countries, recent days in particular have been filled with fear and anxiety.

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Rubio offers US help to secure peace in escalating India-Pakistan conflict

US secretary of state urged both sides to de-escalate as he leads efforts to secure a solution to the deepening crisis

US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has offered US assistance in starting “constructive talks” to end the conflict between India and Pakistan, as the two states traded heavy missile fire on Saturday, prompting concerns over wider military escalation.

Rubio has been engaged in back-and-forth diplomacy between the two countries in recent days, calling for de-escalation as India and Pakistan have been engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday.

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India and Pakistan accuse each other of cross-border attacks on military bases

Claims of missile attacks on targets deep inside both countries marks the steepest escalation in confrontation yet

India and Pakistan have accused each other of cross-border missile strikes against major military targets, the most significant escalation so far in the brewing conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

On Saturday, India accused Pakistan of launching strikes on dozens of airbases and military headquarters across north India, using long-range weapons, drones and fighter aircraft. The accusations came a few hours after Pakistan said India had fired six surface-to-air missiles targeting three of Pakistan’s most important military bases early on Saturday morning.

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Are we heading for another world war – or has it already started?

The rules-based world order is in retreat and violence is on the rise, forcing countries to rethink their relationships

In a week in which former allies in a redividing globe separately commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, the sense of a runaway descent towards a third world war draws ever closer.

The implosion of Pax Americana, the interconnectedness of conflicts, the new willingness to resort to unbridled state-sponsored violence and the irrelevance of the institutions of the rules-based order have all been on brutal display this week. From Kashmir to Khan Younis, Hodeidah, Port Sudan and Kursk, the only sound is of explosions, and the only lesson is that the old rules no longer apply.

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India claims to have thwarted Pakistan missile and drone strikes

Pakistan tried to hit Indian-administered Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan, according to India, which reported ‘no losses’

India claimed to have thwarted retaliatory missile and drone strikes launched by Pakistan on Thursday evening, which attempted to hit sites in Indian-administered Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan.

Residents in Jammu, in Indian-controlled Kashmir, reported missiles and drones over the city and the noise of explosions, amid a city-wide blackout.

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India’s Pakistan strikes show how warfare has been normalised again

All-out war is unlikely but shifting of goalposts amid Gaza and Ukraine conflicts suggests Kashmir crisis could escalate

India’s string of attacks on Pakistan overnight – a response, Delhi says, to the killing of 26 in a terror attack in Kashmir last month – comes at a time when warfare has become increasingly normalised internationally and the restraints of the global diplomatic system weakened.

Though flare-ups between the two south Asian powers are nothing new, India’s Operation Sindoor is already notably more aggressive than recent military actions launched by Delhi against its neighbour in 2016 and 2019, raising the stakes for Pakistan’s promised response to what it says was “an act of war”.

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Kashmir crisis: what is Lashkar-e-Taiba and is it supported by Pakistan?

India claims to have attacked camps associated with a militant group in Pakistan – but what is its relationship with Islamabad?

As India launches missile strikes on what it says are camps associated with militant groups inside Pakistan in retaliation for last month’s massacre in Kashmir, attention has once again focused on India’s claimed relationship between Islamabad and armed groups involved in attacks in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, most prominently Lashkar-e-Taiba.

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India and Pakistan can ill afford war, but who will talk them down? | Hannah Ellis-Petersen

The US has brought the two sides back from the brink before, but the mood is very different with Trump

The uneasy calm that had settled over India and Pakistan in the past two weeks was swiftly shattered in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

In the days that followed the deadly attack that killed 25 Indian tourists and a guide in Kashmir in late March, the Indian government made it clear it held Pakistan responsible – and it intended to avenge the deaths.

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Opposition Congress party wins power in Indian-administered Kashmir

Narendra Modi’s BJP loses first election since stripping the region of its autonomy and statehood

The Indian prime minister’s hopes of his party gaining power in Kashmir were dashed on Tuesday as it emerged that his BJP had lost the first election held since the national government stripped the region of its autonomy and statehood.

The elections instead delivered a resounding victory to India’s main opposition party, Congress, and its regional partner, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC), which had come together in a alliance to defeat Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which also rules at the national level.

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