Clashes after 3 Hizb militants are killed

Irate crowds clashed with the riot police in various areas of Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district on Saturday, leaving over 20 injured. The clashes erupted amid a spontaneous strike following the killing of three militants of the Hizbul Mujahideen during an overnight firefight with security forces in Pulwama’s Panzgam area.

Officials said the slain men — Ashfaq Ahmed Dar, Ishfaq Ahmed Baba and Haseebullah Pahlla — figured in the list of most-wanted militants.

Reports received here said that the police and CRPF fired teargas canisters and pellet guns to quell stone-throwing mobs at various places in Pulwama, including the district headquarters. Six of the seriously injured protesters have been brought to Srinagar for specialised treatment, police and hospital sources said. The police said several of its men also sustained injuries in day-long stone-pelting incidents. Earlier, rail services through Pulwama were suspended and mobile Internet services withdrawn “as a precautionary measure” in view of heightening tensions.

Defence spokesman Lt. Col. N.N. Joshi said that the operation against militants was launched late Friday night on specific intelligence about their presence in Dogirpura village. Reports said that J&K police’s Special Operations Group, along with the Army’s 55 Rashtriya Rifles and the CRPF’s 185 battalion, laid siege to the village and as they zeroed in on a house owned by one Dawood Ahmed Wagay, they came under rifle fire from militants hiding in the premises. The militants also hurled grenades towards security forces. At 3.30 am Saturday, the security forces blew up the house. With first light, a mopping-up operation was launched during which the corpses of the three militants were retrieved, along with three AK rifles, six magazines etc.

Later during the day when the security forces had left the scene of encounter, an unexploded grenade went off seriously injuring 18-year-old Waqas Ahmed Wagay among residents who had gathered there, witnesses said. Later thousands of mourners attended the funerals of slain militants in their ancestral villages amid chanting of pro-freedom and anti India slogans, reports said.