| |
5 killed in IHK, curfew continues
Srinagar—Indian troops killed one of three Muslim
militants who barricaded themselves inside a house after
shooting four people in Kashmir’s second city on Wednesday, police
said.
The attackers, wearing camouflage dress, opened fire on an army post
in the outskirts of
Hindu-majority Jammu, killing one officer and injuring two other
soldiers, they said.
The soldiers retaliated but the militants escaped in a taxi rickshaw
and later killed its driver and two
other civilians, a police spokesman said.
Jammu police chief K. Rajindera Kumar said the militants were cornered
in a house, where some
civilians were also present.
“We have killed one of the three militants as he tried to force his
way out by resorting to heavy
fire,” Kumar said.
“About six civilians including children are also trapped inside the
house,” he said, adding the men
had entered Jammu from Pakistan after cutting through a border fence
on Tuesday.
In occupied Kashmir, as the Indian troops continued to impose curfew
in letter and spirit in the Kashmir
Valley for the fourth consecutive day, on Wednesday, the people of
valley are facing acute shortage of the
essential commodities, as they are not being allowed to come out of
their homes.
A woman from Bapora in Shopian district died after the police and
paramilitary CRPF troopers
did not permit her family to take her to Lal Ded Hospital, KMS
reported.
“Our kids are starving. No relaxation in curfew has made our life
miserable,” a woman told
mediamen on phone.
Reeling under curfew for the fourth day straight, people in the
Kashmir Valley are faced with acute
shortage of food and other essentials.
The residents of summer capital Srinagar, who depends on supplies,
particularly milk and other
dairy products mainly traded in from rural areas of the Valley or
neighbouring Punjab and elsewhere, bear the
brunt of the restrictions.
Meanwhile, paramilitary CRPF troopers prevented a team of foreign
journalists from distributing
juice at Dalgate in Srinagar, witnesses said. The group of journalists
told troops, “Do you want people to die
of starvation?” And pat came the reply: “Yes”.
Irked by the troopers’ behaviour, the journalists visited the police
station Ram Munshibagh,
hoping that the concerned Station House Officer might help them
somehow. But he too refused any help, the
journalists said.
For the fourth consecutive day the local newspapers could not hit the
stands and hawkers too have
stopped circulating Indian newspapers. Due to severe curfew
restrictions the reporters and other staff was not
able to reach the newspaper offices.
On the other hand, two flights from Indian capital New Delhi were
diverted as no flight was
allowed to land amid imposition of tight curfew as the airport staff
was not allowed to come out from their
residences.—APP |
