M A I N   N E W S

NC leader escapes bid on life
Hurriyat leaders for tripartite talks

SRINAGAR, Dec 3 (PTI) — A ruling National Conference leader has escaped a bid on his life by militants in Udhampur district of Jammu region, an official spokesman said today.

Militants fired upon Mr Azad Ahmad Khan when he was on a tour of the Chasana area in Udhampur yesterday, he said.

The security guards of the leader returned the fire and foiled the “nefarious designs” of the militants, the spokesman said, adding that no one was injured in the shootout.

Meanwhile, militants shot dead one person and made an abortive attempt at a security picket in the Sopore area, injuring eight persons, while two armed infiltrators were arrested in Kupwara in the Kashmir valley since last evening.

The body of an alleged police informer, who was earlier abducted by militants from his Pathinagar-Wader residence, was found from the Zachaldara area of Kupwara today, a police spokesman said.

Eight civilians were wounded when militants exploded a grenade at Muslimpeer in the Sopore area of Baramula district this morning, the spokesman said, adding that the grenade was targeted at a security picket in the area.

Two sisters were wounded when a bus was caught in a crossfire between militants and security forces at Bonigam in Anantnag district early today, he said.

The spokesman said following the incident, patrolling had been intensified on the national highway.

Security forces foiled an infiltration bid and arrested two militants soon after they entered the Indian side from across the border in the Kupwara sector last evening.

Meanwhile, two senior Hurriyat Conference leaders have asked the Centre to initiate tripartite talks involving Pakistan to settle the Kashmir issue.

Terming Pakistan a “primary party” to the Kashmir issue, senior Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said: “My sincere advice to India is that keeping in view ... the present ceasefire, it should initiate talks with Pakistan together with the Hurriyat Conference to settle the Kashmir issue and dispel the uncertainty and nuclear peril in the sub-continent.”

The former Hurriyat chairman, who met Pakistan military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf in Doha recently, said he had gathered that Islamabad was “totally prepared to settle the Kashmir issue through peaceful negotiations with India in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.”

Mirwaiz Farooq, who heads the powerfurl Awami Action Committee, said his party was prepared to support any step that led to a peaceful and permanent resolution of the Kashmir issue.

Another senior Hurriyat leader and former chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, has, meanwhile, said that the Centre “must accept Kashmir as a disputed territory and take measures for tripartite talks involving Pakistan and the people of Jammu and Kashmir”.

Addressing a gathering at Humhama in Badgam district, Geelani said the Centre should release all detainees “if it is sincere and serious about the ceasefire.”