SHO, 2 PSOs, driver injured in militant strike on Kashmir highway
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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SRINAGAR, Jul 31: Station House Officer (SHO) Pattan Inspector Mohammad Saleem Mir was injured alongwith his driver and two personal security officers (PSOs) when suspected militants attacked a Police party at Mirgund on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway on Friday evening.
Informed sources told STATE TIMES that a unit of Police Station Pattan and Police Division Mirgund had put up a naka at Mirgund in the evening after receiving raw inputs regarding possible passage of some militants from Sopore to Srinagar. At around 8.30 p.m. when the Police signalled a Tavera, bearing registration number JK01Q-8792, two unidentified gunmen in it lobbed a hand grenade and fired indiscriminately.
Inspector Saleem Mir, who was in the front, got injured alongwith his two PSOs, namely Dilshad Khan and Mushtaq Ahmad. The civilian driver of his privately hired vehicle Bilal Ahmad Gujri, also sustained injuries. Others of the police party retaliated the fire but the assailants escaped successfully in the reverse direction. Later, all the three injured Policemen were evacuated and admitted to Army’s 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar. The civilian driver with minor splinter injuries was admitted in SKIMS Medical College Bemina.
Doctors attending to the injured at the military hospital said that only the Inspector had sustained a gunshot injury. His PSOs, they said, had splinter injuries. All of them were declared as stable.
Sources said that the assailants abandoned their vehicle which was seized by the Police after the militants escaped in the neighbourhood.
Even as most of the Police officials maintained that they were still busy to ascertain the identities and the organisational affiliation of the assailants, authoritative sources insisted that the assailants were none other than the cadres of the expelled Hizbul Mujahideen commander Qayyum Najar. Najar, the group’s top commander for over three years, has been expelled from Hizbul Mujahideen by chief commander Syed Salah-ud-din last week in the wake of a chain of attacks on mobile telephone operators in Sopore, Pattan and Srinagar.
Deputy Inspector General of Police in North Kashmir Gareeb Das told STATE TIMES that the Police party seized the Tavera used and abandoned by the unidentified militants. He said the identity of its owner would be ascertained by tomorrow as Police had immediately launched an extensive investigation. "We have launched a cordon-and-search operation in the locality alongwith Army and CRPF. We hope to get some clue about the identity of the two militants and their hideout", Mr Das said.
DIG said that it was a routine naka as some inputs last week suggested passage of militants by vehicles from North to South Kashmir. He said that the Tavera was intercepted when it was on way towards Srinagar from Sopore. According to him, Police had laid seven nakas on the highway from Sopore to Srinagar.
END
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
-------------------
SRINAGAR, Jul 31: Station House Officer (SHO) Pattan Inspector Mohammad Saleem Mir was injured alongwith his driver and two personal security officers (PSOs) when suspected militants attacked a Police party at Mirgund on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway on Friday evening.
Informed sources told STATE TIMES that a unit of Police Station Pattan and Police Division Mirgund had put up a naka at Mirgund in the evening after receiving raw inputs regarding possible passage of some militants from Sopore to Srinagar. At around 8.30 p.m. when the Police signalled a Tavera, bearing registration number JK01Q-8792, two unidentified gunmen in it lobbed a hand grenade and fired indiscriminately.
Inspector Saleem Mir, who was in the front, got injured alongwith his two PSOs, namely Dilshad Khan and Mushtaq Ahmad. The civilian driver of his privately hired vehicle Bilal Ahmad Gujri, also sustained injuries. Others of the police party retaliated the fire but the assailants escaped successfully in the reverse direction. Later, all the three injured Policemen were evacuated and admitted to Army’s 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar. The civilian driver with minor splinter injuries was admitted in SKIMS Medical College Bemina.
Doctors attending to the injured at the military hospital said that only the Inspector had sustained a gunshot injury. His PSOs, they said, had splinter injuries. All of them were declared as stable.
Sources said that the assailants abandoned their vehicle which was seized by the Police after the militants escaped in the neighbourhood.
Even as most of the Police officials maintained that they were still busy to ascertain the identities and the organisational affiliation of the assailants, authoritative sources insisted that the assailants were none other than the cadres of the expelled Hizbul Mujahideen commander Qayyum Najar. Najar, the group’s top commander for over three years, has been expelled from Hizbul Mujahideen by chief commander Syed Salah-ud-din last week in the wake of a chain of attacks on mobile telephone operators in Sopore, Pattan and Srinagar.
Deputy Inspector General of Police in North Kashmir Gareeb Das told STATE TIMES that the Police party seized the Tavera used and abandoned by the unidentified militants. He said the identity of its owner would be ascertained by tomorrow as Police had immediately launched an extensive investigation. "We have launched a cordon-and-search operation in the locality alongwith Army and CRPF. We hope to get some clue about the identity of the two militants and their hideout", Mr Das said.
DIG said that it was a routine naka as some inputs last week suggested passage of militants by vehicles from North to South Kashmir. He said that the Tavera was intercepted when it was on way towards Srinagar from Sopore. According to him, Police had laid seven nakas on the highway from Sopore to Srinagar.
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