1 militant killed in Mendhar Encounter
Mendhar: One militant was killed in an encounter with security forces in Mendhar in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday morning. According to sources, the encounter is still on.
The militant, who was killed in retaliatory fire, is yet to be identified. Two other militants escaped from a house in the area, but are still battling security forces.
Reports of the encounter came as Defence Minister A K Antony is visiting Rajouri sector in Jammu and Kashmir to review security for the Lok Sabha polls and an update on infiltration bids by militants from across the international border.
Antony is being accompanied by Defence Secretary Vijay Singh and Indian Army chief Deepak Kapoor.
The Defence Minister’’s visit to the border state comes in the wake of intelligence reports that over 400 militants were ready to cross into the state to target political leaders touring the state.
1 militant killed in Mendhar Encounter was first posted on April 27, 2009 at 11:16 am.
Pakistan Still Aiding Kashmir Rebels: India
SRINAGAR: India’s army on Saturday accused Pakistani forces of helping Muslim guerrillas attempting to sneak into its disputed Kashmir region from the Pakistani side.
The Indian army produced a man they said was a Pakistani national who was among 120 people who had infiltrated into the Himalayan region this month, including around 30 militants, 40 porters and guides.
Most of the militants were killed in separate gun battles, Brigadier Gurmit Singh, a senior army officer, told a news conference in Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital.
“The weapons, communication equipment … the method of communication between infiltrating militants and the launch pad, it is quite evident that the armed forces across (Pakistan) do support them (militants),” Singh said.
He said large quantity of arms and ammunition, including 30 AK-47 rifles, 13,000 rounds and 245 grenades were recovered from a militant hideout near the Line of Control, a military control line that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
India consistently accuses Pakistan of aiding a violent separatist revolt in Muslim-majority Kashmir, where tens of thousands of people have been killed since a revolt against New Delhi’s rule broke out in 1989.
“I was told that there was oppression in Kashmir, I was motivated for joining the jihad and imparted training in Pakistan and sent here to join the other militants,” Moieen Ullah, the captured militant, said.
The two countries, who have fought two of their three wars over the disputed Kashmir region that both claim in full but rule only in part, launched a slow moving peace process in 2004.
Pakistan Still Aiding Kashmir Rebels: India was first posted on April 26, 2009 at 10:02 am.
Hurriyat Conference urges people in Kashmir to shun election
SRINAGAR: The All Parties Hurriyat Conference, India-held Kashmir’s main separatist alliance on Friday appealed to the people of the region to boycott India’s general election, prompting authorities to place two separatist leaders under house arrest.
The decision by the alliance, which bands nearly a dozen political, social and separatist groups, comes after United Jihad Council (UJC) asked the separatist alliance to support their call to shun the poll.
UJC is an amalgam of 13 groups fighting Indian troops in Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority state.
“Elections are no substitute for the aspirations of the Kashmiri people and for the resolution of the dispute,” Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said in a statement.
India’s general election began last week, but voting in the Kashmir valley has been split into three phases starting from April 30.
The staggered voting is to allow thousands of security forces to move around the troubled region.
Besides Congress and its main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the regional National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party are also contesting in the Himalayan region.
“Elections in the presence of 700,000 Indian troops is itself a dispute. I appeal to people to stay away from polls,” Farooq said.
Hardline separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani has already called for a boycott of the April-May election.
But another senior separatist leader, Sajjad Gani Lone, who walked out of Hurriyat in 2002, said this month that he would contest the poll and take his struggle to parliament in New Delhi.
On Friday morning Hurriyat’s Farooq and Geelani were placed under house arrest as they prepared to lead anti-poll rallies, police said.
Hurriyat Conference urges people in Kashmir to shun election was first posted on April 24, 2009 at 9:24 pm.
