SRINAGAR: Fourteen persons, including BSF Jawans, a police constable and four others, were killed and seven injured as Pakistani troops targeted security forces in the Kashmir valley, where the civil secretariat and other moving offices reopened on May 8, amidst the strike, called by Employees Action Forum (EAF), report agencies. The killed also include three relatives of Senior People’s League leader, Mohammad Nayeem Khan. Militants abducted five persons including two brothers, hijacked an oil tanker and set ablaze some residential houses in the Valley during the period while security forces netted 29 militants and recovered 350 kg of explosive in the Valley, an official spokesman said here on Monday.
The spokesman said the police constable, Mohammad Hussain Shah, was killed when Pakistani troops engaged security forces, in Keran sector in Kupwara district.
The father of the killed constable died of cardiac arrest as the news reached him, the spokesman said.
The clash between the two sides erupted when Pakistani Rangers targeted forward Indian positions with small weapons, the security forces returned the fire, but the causalities on the other side were not known, he said.
The spokesman said that militants abducted Mohammad Shafi Khan and his wife Mrs. Hamida from their house at Pathan porancar Pattan in Baramulla district, and later shot them dead at village Kangdara Pattan.
The victims were uncle and aunt of Nayeem Khan of People’s League, he said. He said that militants abducted Mohammad Afzal Bhat, a close relative of Nayeem Khan, and later killed him at his village at BotaMohalla near Sumbal in Baramulla district. Militants hijacked an oil tanker filled with 12,000 liters of oil in Shergari area in Srinagar, While its driver was let off, Mohammad Amin, salesman of petrol pump Banidipora, who was travelling in, is still in their captivity. Militants set on fire the Government middle school building at Haqwas Chhatroo in Doda district, he said.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 12, 1995
