|
|
|
|
|
ASI killed in Sopore gun battle Srinagar, January 7 Militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility and said that its cadres carried out the ambush. Balig-ud-Din, operational spokesman of Hizb, told a local news agency, “Our boys reached back safely,” he said. The encounter in Sopore, 50 km from here, is the first shootout between militants and security forces this year. Security and political analysts in the region fear that 2014 may be turbulent for J&K as NATO forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan later this year. Sources said the SOG team, on an intelligence tip-off about the presence of two militants, including a local Lashker-e-Toiba commander Muzaffar Naikoo alias Muza Molivi, in a house in the dense locality of Chanakan, started sealing the area. On seeing them, militants opened fire on the SOG personnel who were in civvies. “As the area was being sealed, militants opened fire and hurled a grenade on the party in which four SOG men including ASI Kafeel Ahmed were injured,” said a police officer. “Ahmed received bullet and splinter wounds in his abdomen and was shifted to a Srinagar hospital where he succumbed to his injures,” he added. Reinforcements from the Army and CRPF were immediately rushed to the area to tighten the cordon and prevent the militants’ escape. The security forces carried out searches in the area but they could not trace the militants. Sources, however, said that the militants managed to break the cordon after the initial gunfight. The search operation was later called off.The police said that ASI Ahmed, a resident of the frontier Kupwara district, had been posted in Sopore for the past six years and had received injures at least twice during various encounters. Ahmed is survived by two minor children, wife and an aged mother. Inspector General Police, Kashmir, AG Mir said that the search operation was launched after they received an input about the presence of militants. “We had an input about the presence of militants and after which a search operation was launched. The militants hurdled grenades and opened fire in which four of our men were injured. One of them achieved martyrdom,” he said.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
