Srinagar, December 21
Four members of a family, including a six-year-old child, were killed and three women seriously injured when suspected militants barged into their house and opened fire indiscriminately on the inmates at Rebbon village near Sopore in Baramula district of north Kashmir last night.

The incident took place a day after the killing of Abdul Aziz Mir, PDP MLA, by suspected militants at Pampore near here yesterday. Three major attacks on a CRPF camp at Pamposh hotel here, an IED explosion in a bus carrying Army men near Qazigund on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway and a suicide attack on Raghunath temple in Jammu had taken place in succession last month.

Security forces averted a major tragedy by timely detection of a 10 kg IED near a bridge on the Pulwama-Shopian road in Pulwama district early this morning. The IED hidden under the bridge was later defused without any damage, the police said.

A jawan of the Indo Tibetan Border (ITBP) was shot dead by suspected militants in the central Lal Chowk area here this afternoon, while the police found a body in Pulwama district today.

The police here said that militants barged into the house of Ghulam Qadir Dar at Rebbon near Sopore in Baramula district and opened indiscriminate fire on the inmates at 11 pm last night. Two sons of Ghulam Qadir Dar, Mohammad Yusuf and Mushtaq Ahmad, and the six-year-old grandchild, Zubair Ahmad, died on the spot. Ghulam Qadir succumbed to his injuries later in the hospital. Three women, including Dar’s two daughters and a daughter-in-law, sustained injuries and have been admitted to the Subdistrict hospital, Sopore.

A pall of gloom descended on the village following the incident even as the deaths of four members of a family were being mourned today. The police has started investigations into the circumstances which led to the massacre. Elsewhere, unidentified militants shot dead an ITBP jawan on the busy Exchange Road here this afternoon.

The body of a businessman, Riyaz Ahmad Shah, was found by the police from Kumdalan Shopian in Pulwama district today.

JAMMU: Close on the heels of the killing of three girls ostensibly to enforce a diktat on wearing burqa, militants beheaded another woman in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday night, the police said on Saturday.

Militants barged into the house of Jan Begum, 43, in the Darhal area and beheaded her, it said. The incident took place in less than 24 hours of the killing of three girls aged between 21 and 23 years at Thanamandi village in the district.

Meanwhile, three persons — two militants and an Army personnel — were killed and a Captain seriously injured in an encounter in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said on Saturday.