M A I N   N E W S

Kidnapped teachers slaughtered

Srinagar, September 14
Militants slaughtered two teachers and attacked security patrols killing four persons and injuring an equal number in Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said today.

The militants kidnapped two teachers from Fatehpur village of Rajouri district this morning and took them to a nearby village where they were tortured and slaughtered. The limbs were chopped off and the head cut off of one of the victims, Shabir, they said.

Shabir and his brother-in-law Bagh Hussain Gujjar, the other victim, were teachers at government schools.

The militants hurled grenades and fired indiscriminately on an Army patrol in Udhyanpur hills of Doda district last night, killing a security personnel and injuring three, two of them seriously.

Special police officer Mohammad Anwar was killed and another personnel injured when the militants attacked a joint patrol of the Army and the police in the Thanamandi forests of Rajouri district, the sources said.

Meanwhile, seven persons, including a militant, were killed and two militants apprehended, while the militants set ablaze a government school building in separate incidents in the Kashmir valley since last evening.

Nazir Ahmad Khan was killed on the spot while two were injured when an explosive device went off in the forest area of Trehgam in Kupwara last evening.

The security forces killed a militant during an encounter in the same district last night. An AK rifle with a magazine was recovered from the site of the encounter.

The militants shot dead shopkeeper Abdul Latif Bimla at Ahlan Payeen in Anantnag last evening.

The militants also shot dead two persons, one each at Baramula and Badgam last evening. The victims have been identified as Jang Bahadur Singh and Ajaz Ahmad Wani.

Ajaz Ahmad, who was injured in yesterday’s IED blast at Bijbehara, succumbed to his injuries early today.

Constable Zahoor Ahmad also succumbed to his injuries late last evening.

The security forces apprehended two militants at Tangpora, Sumbal, along with four grenades, three detonators and 2 kg of RDX.

The militants set ablaze a primary school building at Watpora in north Kashmir last evening.

The Army has arrested a top Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant in Doda district who said terrorist outfits openly ran training camps in Pakistan and the Pakistani army did “everything” to facilitate infiltration of the militants into Jammu and Kashmir.

Mohammad Shezad, 25-year-old resident of Lathiwala village in Pakistan’s Faisalabad district and LeT commander in Banihal, was arrested in an injured condition after a day-long encounter in the Neel area of Doda district yesterday.

“I was motivated to join in as I was told that mosques are burnt down in J and K and Muslims are oppressed here. But I did not find anything of that sort happening here”, he said.

He said he underwent eight-month training with at least 1,000 other terrorists at one of the 10 camps of the LeT in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Life was paralysed in several parts of Baramula today to strikes in Sumbal, Sonwari and Hajan in protest against the killing of Jammu and Kashmir Awami League Chairman Kukka Parray.

Shops and business establishments remained closed and traffic was off the road.

The Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, meanwhile, has claimed responsibility for killing Kukka Parray yesterday.

A man who identified himself as Sahrai Baba phoned several newspaper offices here today to say that his group had killed Parray. — Agencies