M A I N   N E W S

NC leader shot in Poonch
14 ultras among 27 killed

Srinagar, June 27
A ruling National Conference leader was among 27 persons killed in militancy-related violence in Jammu and Kashmir during the past 24 hours.

The dead included 14 militants and 10 security personnel, official sources said.

Militants barged into the home of National Conference leader and sarpanch Mohammad Sardar Khan Atmohra Bachali in Poonch district and shot him dead last evening, an official spokesman said.

Police Superintendent Pulwama Mukesh Kumar escaped an attempt on his life in a militant firing at his vehicle in Kellar this afternoon which killed his guard and wounded three constables. Reinforcements have been rushed to the area.

A BSF spokesman told UNI that a jawan died and another was critically injured after a bomb went off at Zangam near Pattan in the Baramula district as soon as a road-opening BSF party reached there. The wounded jawan was flown to the Army hospital in a helicopter.

Baramula residents, meanwhile, took to the streets in protest against alleged acts of molestation committed by the security forces, paralysing life in the north Kashmir town for a second day.

Shops and business establishments remained closed and vehicles were off the roads as hundreds of people, mostly youths, carried out street protests and demanded immediate action against the guilty.

An official spokesman said Jammu and Kashmir Works Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar has ordered a probe into the allegation.

Official sources said seven ultras were killed in a fierce clash with troops in Gurez.

The security forces had sealed the area after they received a tip-off about the entry of 25 to 30 militants into the valley through Kanzalwan, sources said adding that militants attacked the troops with sophisticated weapons and grenades inside the woods, killing four securitymen.

The official spokesman said an encounter occurred between militants and the security forces at Lah-Thanamandi in Rajouri district of the Jammu region last evening during which one militant was killed.

Three security personnel also died while 11 others, seven of them security jawans, were injured. One civilian died on way to hospital, he said.

The security forces gunned down a militant at Behak near the line of actual control in the frontier district of Kupwara last night.

Militants shot dead counter-insurgent Faizan Khan and critically injured a woman, Gowhara Akhtar, in the “Ikhwan” camp at Devsar in south Kashmir late last night. UNI