SRINAGAR, India, Oct 9, 2024 (AFP) - A soldier was abducted by suspected militants and killed in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said Wednesday, hours after results were announced for the disputed region's first local elections in a decade.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between rivals India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and is home to a long-running insurgency.

Two soldiers were kidnapped on Tuesday evening in Anantnag district, a police officer told AFP.

"One of the soldiers managed to escape. He has two bullet wounds and is undergoing treatment," said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media.

The body of the other soldier was recovered Wednesday morning from a forest, hours after a manhunt began seeking to locate the pair.

At least 500,000 Indian troops are deployed in Kashmir, battling an insurgency with tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels killed since 1989.

India regularly accuses Pakistan of supporting and arming the rebels, a charge Islamabad denies. 

The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought several conflicts for control of the region since 1947.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government cancelled Kashmir's limited autonomy in 2019, a sudden decision accompanied by mass arrests and a months-long communications blackout.

His administration says the decision has allowed it to make headway in curbing the insurgency, but critics have accused it of suppressing political freedoms and local civil society.

The soldiers were abducted after results were announced in Kashmir's first regional polls since 2014, with an alliance led by the regionalist National Conference to form a government.

Omar Abdullah of the National Conference, expected to be named the territory's chief minister, said the result was a rebuke of the policies implemented by Modi's party.