India revives network of village guards in Kashmir

India is reviving a network of thousands of village guards in Jammu and Kashmir, including arming some with automatic rifles, after a militant attack in the disputed region killed seven civilians earlier in January.
New Delhi has battled a decades-long armed insurgency in Kashmir, accusing arch rival Pakistan of stoking violence in the territory – an allegation that Islamabad denies. The nuclear-armed neighbours claim the Himalayan region – that includes the Muslim majority Kashmir valley and Hindu-dominated Jammu – in full but control only parts of it.
Authorities reactivated an almost defunct network of 26,000 Village Defence Guards (VDGs) after militants killed seven residents of a Hindu community in a remote village in Jammu’s Rajouri district on Jan. 1.