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.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS