A gunbattle between Muslim militants and Indian troops in the heart of Kashmir's main city entered a second day yesterday amid concerns for the safety of about 40 people trapped in nearby buildings.
Two soldiers have been killed and 24 people, including seven journalists, wounded in the fighting. Witnesses said the area had been cordoned off by hundreds of troops, who were backed by armored jeeps and trucks mounted with machine guns.
An unspecified number of militants had positioned themselves in two buildings in central Srinagar after they raided the city's main business center on Friday afternoon, sparking a fierce battle with troops.
PHOTO: AFP
Police and witnesses said some 40 people were trapped in a newspaper office, the Daily Aftab, and in a hotel next to a building where the militants were holed up.
"They are all scared but safe," Zahoor Ahmad, an editor on the Urdu language newspaper, said by phone from the office.
Yesterday morning, police and soldiers rescued at least 20 civilians, including some children, who had been stranded in a bank in the area as shots were exchanged between the guerrillas and troops, a police officer said.
``We have cordoned off the entire area and evacuated everybody,'' K. Srinivasan, the Border Security Force's intelligence chief in Kashmir, said yesterday.
Two or three militants were firing from the two buildings' windows, Srinivasan said.
Two policemen and three paramilitary soldiers were wounded yesterday when security forces tried to storm one of the buildings where the militants were thought to be hiding, a senior police officer said.
``They [the militants] fired heavily as a group of police and paramilitary soldiers tried to storm one of the buildings,'' he said.
Security officials said they planned to flush out the militants, armed with grenades and automatic rifles, soon but were being careful to avoid civilian casualties.
"On the backside of the building, we are drilling a hole to push soldiers in to flush out the terrorists," a Border Security Force officer, who asked not to be named, said without elaborating.
Television cameramen and photographers who had rushed to cover Friday's firefight got caught in the crossfire. Seven were hurt, including a cameraman who was in a critical condition.
In Srinagar, streets were quieter than usual as many people stayed indoors to keep out of the way.
"Incidents like this make me feel hopeless. Peace for Kashmir is like a mirage," Abdul Ahad, a 50-year-old businessman, said.
Two Islamic groups fighting New Delhi's rule over Kashmir, Al-Mansuriyan and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the raid although officials have not named any group suspected in the attack.
"Four mujahidin of Al-Mansuriyan and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen groups who have engaged Indian forces in a fierce gunbattle are safe and have inflicted heavy casualties on the security forces," a statement of Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen said.
More than a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting security forces in India's portion of Muslim-majority Kashmir for the territory's independence or its merger with mostly Muslim Pakistan. The 15-year insurgency has claimed more than 66,000 lives, mostly civilians.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS