Daily Excelsior....News Page

Another PDP leader shot dead in Anantnag
*ITBP jawan killed, 3 injured in grenade blast

Excelsior Special Correspondent

SRINAGAR, Nov 17: Having withdrawn their support of silence to the ruling alliance, militants have shot dead yet another functionary of Ms Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in her own Assembly constituency of Pahalgam, in south Kashmir. Meanwhile, militants have left a soldier of the paramilitary ITBP dead and three civilians injured in a grenade attack in Anantnag while as a village headman’s son has been killed in another grenade blast in Ganderbal area.

Apparently not satisfied with the PDP chief Ms Mehbooba Mufti’s Rawalpindi Road rhetoric, militants have gunned down yet another of her party activist in Anantnag. Informed sources told EXCELSIOR that the local PDP leader, Mohammad Ismail Khanday S/o Mohammad Ramzan Khanday of Laripora, Pahalgam, had left for Akoora area to establish contact with a "commander" of Hizbul Mujahideen. Militants captured him and shot him dead at a deserted spot between Akoora and Nanil in Mattan area during last night. His bullet-riddled body with five gunshot wounds on his abdomen was recovered today.

Khanday’s threat perception had reportedly increased after the assassination of three PDP activists in south Kashmir during last fortnight. According to informed sources, he had been trying to seek contact with a militant commander to desperately buy his life. Before joining the PDP, he had retired as an employee of the State Tourism Department.

SSP Anantnag, A Q Manhas, confirmed that Khanday’s threat perception had increased recently. He said that Police explained it to the PDP worker and offered him protection as many as three times in the last few days. However, the PDP activist insisted that there was no threat to his life. The other day only, he had submitted in written to the SSP that he would not require or accept any Police protection. Like majority of the Mufti followers, Khanday seemed to have nourished the wishful thinking that militant had been placed in good humour by their party leadership.

Khanday, who was Ms Mufti’s important worker in her constituency of Pahalgam, has been killed days after militants assassinated three prominent leaders of the ruling party at Pampore, Anantnag and Awantipore. Hizbul Mujahideen’s "district commander" for Pulwama had publicly claimed responsibility for killing the PDP’s zonal president in Pampore.

Notwithstanding the Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s claim of disbanding the Special Operations Group (SOG) and Ms Mufti’s uproar over the human rights abuse by security forces, militants have struck on the PDP activists three times in the last one year. On December 10, 2002, militants gunned down PDP’s Pampore MLA, Abdul Aziz Mir, when he was returning to his Konibal residence on foot after performing prayers at the local mosque.

Days after Jammu & Kashmir Police killed Hizbul Mujahideen’s "chief commander of operations", Ghulam Hassan Khan alias Saiful Islam, in close vicinity of the Chief Minister’s Nowgam residence on April 2, 2003, militants struck in a big way on the ruling party in Mufti’s hometown of Bijbehara. They gunned down three PDP activists in one single night as if to convey the harshest of their displeasure to the Muftis. However, the militants relented after A K Suri was removed as Director General of Police.

The current spree of killings against the PDP began last fortnight when militants shot dead the PDP zonal president and Mufti Sayeed’s long time political associate at Pampore. It was followed by the assassination of retired Deputy Director of Prosecution, Advocate Zulfikar Ahmed Jan, who had joined the PDP earlier this year. Jan was ambushed by militants when he was returning to his home after performing the late-evening special Ramzan prayers at the local mosque in Lazbal locality of Anantnag town. For years, militants had spared the Mufti supporters and restricted their offensive to Dr Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference.

Meanwhile, militants today lobbed a hand grenade on a vehicle of ITBP 10th Bn at SRTC bus-yard in Mehendi Kadal locality of Anantnag town. It hit the targeted vehicle and exploded while killing a Constable, namely Papu Prasad. Three pedestrians, including a woman, sustained injuries. One of them, Bashir Ahmed Bhat of Srundu, Kulgam, was admitted at a hospital.

Sources said that dead body of a 28-year-old Muslim male was recovered from the Jhelum at Patlibagh, Pampore, today. It had neither any torture marks nor any gunshot wounds. The deceased seemed to be a mentally deranged person, Police sources said.

Reports from Ganderbal said that at 2230 hours last night, an unidentified person lobbed a hand grenade on the house of the village headman, Abdur Rasheed Khan, at Anderwan in Manigam area. It exploded, killing the Numberdar’s son, Imtiyaz Khan, on spot. Another son, Altaf Khan, sustained critical injuries. He was rushed to SKIMS, Soura, for medical treatment. SP Ganderbal, Syed Afad Mujtaba, insisted that it was not necessarily a militancy-related incident. He said that Police was working on some clues and the assailant would be tracked down soon.

Police raids KI offices
*Azhar continues to evade arrest

ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: As police launched a manhunt for leader of the banned militant outfit Khudamul-e-Islam, Maulana Masood Azhar after the Pakistani Government banned his outfit alongwith two others, authorities have sealed off 60 offices and seminaries of the three groups and directed banks to seal their accounts.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told local TV networks that Azhar, who formed KI after last year’s ban on his outfit, Jaish-e-Muhammad, is yet to be traced.

Though Pakistan police have sealed over 60 offices of the KI, Islami Tehrik Pakistan (ITP) and Millatt-e-Islamiya of Pakistan (MIP), they have not arrested the cadre of the groups in all the four provinces.

District Police Officer of Baha-walpur, the home town of Azhar, Sikandar Hayat said that police raids on his house have proved fruitless.

"He does not seem to be at his native town," he said adding that nine offices and seminaries of the three groups have so far been closed in his division, local daily Dawn reported.

Meanwhile, Azhar’s family has accused the police of ill-treating the inmates of his house during the raids.

Azhar’s brother Mufti Abdur Raof alleged that the police violated law and exceeded all limits during the raids.

"They (the police) violated the sanctity of our homes and mistreated our family members."

Feigning ignorance about Azhar’s wherabouts, Raof said "he is travelling somewhere either in Punjab or Sindh. I don’t know exactly."

Criticising the Government’s decision to ban the organisation, he said the council of the banned group would meet soon to decide its future strategy.

However, Hayat denied Rauf’s allegations saying "this is absolutely wrong. We used women police in all the raids and never entered anywhere forcibly".

Interior Minister Hayat claimed that police have sealed off most of the offices of the three units all over Pakistan.

In view of the ban on the groups, he said their bank accounts would also be frozen and the process of sealing their offices would be completed within the next 72 hours.

He said the Government had instructed the State Bank to freeze bank accounts of the leaders of these banned groups. "The SBP and other agencies have been assigned the task to trace them within 72 hours."

"We would not only seal main offices of these groups but their covert establishments and sites would also be sealed," he said adding banned groups would not be allowed to reorganise under any new name. (PTI)