Three hurt in Pak firing
Tribune News Service and agencies

SRINAGAR, Sept 12 — Three persons, including a policeman, were injured, two of them seriously, in stepped up firing by Pakistani troops on Indian positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir, an official note said here today.

One of the two seriously injured was brought here today for medical treatment, the note said.

More than 50 artillery shells landed in and around Kargil. Six of the shells landed in Bardo Colony where the district offices are located, but the government employees escaped unhurt, the note said.

Due to the impact of the shells many private buildings and government offices developed cracks and a few of them were damaged, it said.

The Kargil station of All-India Radio, Government High School, Baroo, and the Old Police Lines were also partly affected, it said.

Normal programmes of the Kargil station of AIR remained suspended yesterday.

Residents had been shifted to safer places within Kargil town, an official said.

He said some shells hit the premises of the Sessions Court, the high school and other places in the Buroo area of Kargil. However, no damage was caused.

The spokesman said a militant of the outlawed Hizbul Mujahideen and a security jawan were killed in two separate gunfights between militants and security forces at Nildori and Lalpora in Kupwara district yesterday.

He said militants killed three persons at Sailian Dhoke village in border district of Poonch in the Jammu region yesterday. Militants also shot dead Altaf Hussain, an employee of the Sericulture Department, at Kalota-Mendha in Poonch yesterday.

A woman died in an explosion in her house at Tamol-Reasi in Udhampur district of Jammu last night, the spokesman said.

He said a bullet-riddled body was picked up by the police from Anantnag district last night.

He said three militants were wounded following a gunfight with security forces at Hangni-Kote in Kupwara yesterday.

Militants attacked a police patrol at Chak-e-Darhama near Kreeri in Baramula district prompting the latter to return the fire, but no loss of life was reported.

Militants hurled a grenade on a security picket at Lal Mandi in Srinagar last night. It missed the target, causing damage to a car and the windowpanes of nearby houses.

He said a self-styled platoon commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen was arrested from a hideout at Tankipora in Srinagar.

'Expansion of Cabinet likely by month-end'

NEW DELHI, Sept 12 (PTI) — The long-awaited expansion of the Union Cabinet may take place by this month-end, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Madan Lal Khurana said today.

"I think it will be soon, may be by the month-end", he told reporters.

Asked whether the Rabri Devi government in Bihar would be dismissed, he shot back, "Who said it is being dismissed? The Prime Minister (Atal Behari Vajpayee) only said a decision on the demand for dismissal will be taken soon".

"Whatever he said is enough. I will put my views before the Cabinet", Mr Khurana said when asked about his personal stand on the issue.

Flaying the Congress and Left parties for attacking the BJP about the misuse of Article 356, he said, "They have no moral right to give us discourses on this issue", adding, "The erstwhile United Front government had dismissed the UP Government just days before the last general election.

"They are now giving us advice on where to use Article 356 and where not".

Mr Khurana claimed the BJP government would complete its full term without any hitch since "there is no alternative to Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee as Prime Minister as no other leader enjoys the people's trust and confidence".

He said the collapse of the government at this juncture would only mean a mid-term election which no MP wanted and even if the Congress formed an alternative government, it would break sooner or later.

The minister also claimed that Congressmen as a whole were not yet prepared to accept Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister and would not trust the Left parties to support their government for a longer time.