Militants shut cellphone business with 2 killings in 2 days in Sopore

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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SRINAGAR, May 26: A day after striking on a BSNL franchisee and killing one of his employees in broad daylight shootout in Sopore, suspected militants on Tuesday night shot dead a middle-aged civilian who had refused to close down a tower and a recharge outlet at his home in Dooru village. With this offensive, gunmen, widely believed to be the militants of Hizbul Mujahideen, have spread a wave of terror and rendered the entire cellphone business dysfunctional in the home constituency of the Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani who had, significantly, condemned Monday’s firing as an “act of terrorism”.

Informed official sources told State Times that two unidentified persons barged into the residence of 55-year-old Ghulam Hassan Dar at Dooru---Hurriyat Chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s village in Sopore outskirts---at 9.30 p.m. One of them took out his AK-47 rifle and showered bullets on Dar, killing him on the spot. The assassins walked away without any resistance.

According to these sources, a militant group had directed Dar to close down the operation of an Airtel mobile tower on his premises besides a cellphone recharge outlet last week. However, Dar had ignored the diktat and continued his business. His defiance is believed to have provoked the militants to kill him.

Previously a militant of Hizbul Mujahideen, Dar had set up his small time businesses after his release from jail in 1998. Later, one of his four sons, Tanvir Ahmad Dar, contested Panchayat elections of 2011 and was elected as Sarpanch.

On Monday, suspected militants had attacked BSNL franchise of one Ghulam Mohammad Bhat at Noorbagh, in Sopore township. While as Bhat and one of his employees, Imtiyaz Ahmad Bhat of Achhabal, were critically injured in the firing inside their office on first floor of the building in the busy Shah Faisal Market, another employee---26-year-old Rafeeq Ahmad Bhat of Pohrupeth Handwara---died on the spot. The injured are under treatment at SMHS Hospital in Srinagar.

On Saturday, suspected militants had lobbed a hand grenade on the premises of another civilian at Kralteng, in Sopore township. It failed to explode but caused a wave of terror among the people associated with the mobile telephony operations. Last fortnight, suspected militants, had circulated posters in the name of “Lashkar-e-Islami”, believed to be a front name, asking everybody concerned in Sopore area to immediately close down mobile phone tower operations besides the cellphone recharge outlets.

Immediately after the broad daylight attack on Monday, most of the cellphone operations and recharge businesses of BSNL, Airtel, Aircel, Reliance, Vodafone and Idea Cellular came to a grinding halt in Sopore and the district headquarters of Baramulla. It has reportedly affected thousands of the pre-paid cellphone subscribers of different companies. Voice call and Internet services on pre-paid phones have been badly affected.

According to well-informed sources, militants have started the offensive immediately after a sophisticated wireless device, which they had secretly planted on the top of a tower, disappeared in mysterious circumstances. They have threatened the cellphone operators to either return the device or pay them a huge amount of money as “compensation” in case it had been seized by Police or any other government agency.

IGP Kashmir Javaid Mujtaba Gillani told State Times: “We have detected the improvised radio device on one BTS tower and seized it. Our investigation is underway as we have already questioned a number of people”. The IGP said that the device had been planted for relaying, receiving, boosting and transmitting voice calls of the militant network in Sopore-Baramulla-Pattan belt of North Kashmir. He said such equipment, made out of a conventional Kenwood-type radio set with a changed circuit, had been detected and seized in J&K for the first time.

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