Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, June 14: Unknown militants this morning killed a shopkeeper in North Kashmir’s restive Sopore area taking the number of killing this week to 3.
These killings took place after last month’s series of attacks on Telecoms in Sopore area in which 2 men were killed and four were injured. The spree of killings has sent alarm bells ringing for the security agencies leading to a special security review meeting for Sopore to be held tomorrow.
Earlier in the morning, unidentified gunmen came in a car and fired from a very close range at shopkeeper, Mehraj-ud-Din Dar, at Badamibagh outside his residence at 0900 hrs in Sopore in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
However, he was rushed to hospital where he was declared brought dead. The gunmen later managed to escape from the area in the same car. Senior security officials reached the spot and area was cordoned and searches were conducted but no one was arrested.
This was the third killing by unidentified gunmen during less than a week in Sopore, hometown of hardline Hurriyat Conference (HC) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who had alleged that intelligence agencies are involved in these killings.
One of the deceased Altaf ur-Rehman Sheikh was an activist of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, a constituent of Hurriyat, also headed by Geelani. And second, a businessman from Bomai Sopore was the sympathizers of the party.
The recent attacks on telecoms and killing spree in Sopore is a major worry for the security agencies in Kashmir. Today’s killing took place a day after yesterday’s security review meeting of the Core Group of security agencies in Srinagar in which Sopore killings were discussed.
Disturbed over the gravity of the situation in Sopore in North Kashmir, sources said an emergency security review meeting is being held at Sopore tomorrow to assess the security situation of the Police that has seen frequent strikes in past few weeks.
Sources said that General Officer Commanding (GOC) 15 Corps, Lt General Subrata Saha and Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police, K Rajendra, will chair the review meeting which will be attended by the top security officials.
The security agencies have no concrete evidence of the militants involved in the recent spree of attacks. Although, they say that Laskhar-e-Islam which targeted the telecoms and this week’s three killings have been executed by militants of Hizbul Mujhaideen group based in Sopore but they have failed to get hold of any one of them.
Security agencies’ major concern is that despite huge presence of Army and police in Sopore, the militants are carrying out frequent attacks. The security review meeting will formulate a strategy to counter these frequent attacks.
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