Srinagar - Former Occupied Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has said India lacked guts to take back parts of Jammu and Kashmir now under Pakistani control, reported Indian media on Friday.
Addressing a rally in Kishtwar district, the National Conference president said India and Pakistan needed to talk and solve the Kashmir issue because "war is no solution".
"Pakistan is one of the stakeholders which the government of India has itself accepted. There was a resolution on this, which says that Pakistani Kashmir is the part of India," he said.
"The government of India has no guts to take back (parts of Kashmir) from Pakistan; neither Pakistan has guts to snatch Kashmir from India. In between, innocent people of Kashmir are suffering and border residents have become the cannon fodder due to escalating tensions."
Abdullah made the remarks amid heightened India and Pakistan border tension which has left dozens of people, including soldiers, dead on both sides.
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AFP adds: An Indian soldier and two suspected rebels were killed Friday in a gun battle in northern Indian-administered Kashmir.
The Indian army, which maintains a heavy presence in the disputed territory, said that the two rebels had clashed with soldiers in Naidkhai, just north of Srinagar.
"Two terrorists were killed and a soldier was martyred. Two weapons and a grenade launcher were recovered from the site of the encounter," Colonel Rajesh Kaia said.
Suspected rebels attacked a police patrol in a separate incident on Friday in the southern Kulgam region, killing two officers and injuring one.
"It was an ambush on a police party. They fired from automatic weapons and killed two of our colleagues," a local police officer told AFP.