SRINAGAR: Militants beheaded three Army officers after kidnapping them from Shalla Pathri near the Line of Actual Control in the frontier district of Kupwara last week. The dead included a Major, a Subedar Major and a Lance Naik. According to delayed reports, a massive manhunt was launched: to track down abductors and free the Army personnel in the adjoining areas immediately. On July 24th, the headless bodies of the three kidnapped personnel were recovered from near Dardpora village in the same district, sources said. However, Army authorities insist that the three were killed in a fierce encounter and denied the kidnapping. The incident has come as a rude shock to the State Government and the Army as they have been claiming that militancy had been controlled. The All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference (ASKPC), an organization of migrant Kashmiri Hindus, will boycott the forthcoming Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. Addressing a gathering of migrant Kashmiris at Batal Balian camp in Udhampur, recently, the outfit’s president Amar Nath Vaishnavi said “There is no question of taking part in the coming Assembly elections in the state till our political economic, social and cultural demands are met. We should be given constitutional guarantee, and if it is not given, participating in the elections is impossible”. He added a delegation would meet Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, all United Front constituents and leader of the Opposition Atal Behari Vajpayee in New Delhi next week. On the prevailing situation in the Kashmir Valley, the ASKPC chief said militancy had not died down and had instead spread.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 31, 1996
