Security personnel killed four top militants of Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Tayiba but lost one army jawan in a day-long fierce gunbattle in the border district of Kupwara in north Kashmir on Friday.
Curfew in many parts and separatist-sponsored strike disrupted normal life for the 30th straight day on Sunday in Kashmir Valley where violence has so far left 54 persons dead and more than 6000 others injured.
This assurance was given by home minister Amit Shah to a delegation of sarpanch and panch from Jammu and Kashmir who met him on Tuesday.
Delhi is likely to record its second-coldest December since 1901 as temperatures are predicted to drop further.
Police fired warning shots and lobbed teargas shells to disperse stone-pelting protestors during two-hour curfew relaxation in old Anantnag town on Saturday morning even as authorities imposed curfew in two more areas of Trehgam and Kupwara towns after agitation by locals.
Ignoring the separatists' call for boycott, residents of Qoimoh block in south Kashmir on Wednesday turned out in numbers to cast votes in the first phase of panchayat elections, which are being held in Jammu and Kashmir after a gap of 10 years.
Chidambaram, who arrived in the north Kashmir town of Baramulla from Kargil in Ladakh region, took stock of the situation in Baramulla, Bandipora and Kupwara -- the three districts along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Valley which witnessed violent protests during the past four months.
Two officers -- Lt Colonel Mukesh Jha and Major Amardeep Singh -- are among the five injured army personnel.
A senior police officer said the terrorists, allegedly dressed in army fatigues, ambushed a Srinagar-bound convoy of the BSF.
The charegsheet has named Col D K Pathania, Maj Maurya, Major Upinder, Subedar Satbir, Hawaldar Bir Singh, Sepoys Chandra Bhan, Nagendra Singh and Narendra Singh and Abbas Hussain Shah of the Territorial Army (TA) besides two civilians Basharat Lone and Abdul Hamid Bhat.
Reeling under strict restrictions with no access to communication since August 5 when the Centre announced its decision to end Jammu and Kashmir's special status under Article 370 and bifurcate the state into two union territories, the people in the Valley have been facing a hair-raising challenge of finding a hairdresser to have their unkempt beards trimmed and unruly locks chopped.
'This uniqueness of Jammu and Kashmir has to be respected by New Delhi. If it is not done, then it puts question-mark on the very basis of the relationship,' Jammu and Kashmir People's Conference chairman Sajjad Gani Lone tells Pervez Majeed.
Leh in Ladakh region recorded the lowest temperature this winter as mercury plummeted to minus 17.1 degree Celsius on Tuesday night, a meteorological department official said.
Official sources said the chargesheet has named Colonel D K Pathania, Major Upinder and four others of the unit besides a Territorial Army jawan and two others for allegedly conspiring and kidnapping three youths from Sopore on the pretext of giving them jobs and later killing them in the higher reaches of Kupwara claiming they were terrorists.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police has sought the custody of an army colonel, a major and four others for custodial interrogation in the alleged fake encounter of three youth in Machil sector in frontier district of Kupwara in April this year.
The bodies of the three persons killed in an alleged fake encounter on April 30 on the Line of Control (LoC) by the army were exhumed on Friday afternoon and were identified by the relatives.
A top terrorist commander of the frontline Lashkar-e-Tayiba outfit was among two militants killed in two separate encounters in north Kashmir on Thursday.
Groups of youth took to the streets at Press Colony and Khanyar in support of Naik.
In the first of the series of recruitment drives launched in Kupwara and neighbouring areas in 20 years, the response has been overwhelming, an army official said. It may be recalled that during the height of militancy from 1990 to 2005, security forces were unable to hold or even think of any recruitment camps.
The road, the alternative link between Kashmir and rest of the country, was closed after the season's first heavy snowfall in the Jammu region.
Seven militants and two army troopers were among nine persons killed in fierce separate gunfights in the north Kashmir Kupwara border district on Wednesday.
Nadda asked party workers to go to people and 'expose' the Congress's 'slander campaign' against the government.
A CRPF vehicle had suffered slight damage when a Santro car went up in flames after an explosion at Tethar village, seven km from Banihal, shortly after a Jammu-bound convoy crossed the Jawahar Tunnel, the gateway to Kashmir valley.
Parvez was arrested on September 16 and placed in administrative detention in a jail in Kupwara for allegedly posing an imminent threat of breach of peace.
Acting on a tip off, police cordoned off Alaypore village in Shopian. The militants hiding in a house opened fire at the security forces and in the ensuing firefight, two militants were killed, official sources said.
Earlier in 2010, the highest number of 156 terrorists were killed between January and July that year.
At least 11 persons, including two Army soldiers and nine militants, were killed in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday in three different encounters between militants and security forces.
The minimum temperature across the Kashmir Valley and Ladakh Union Territory stayed several degrees below the freezing point, intensifying the cold wave in some areas in the region, an official of the Meteorological Department said. He said Srinagar city recorded the low of minus 6.2 degrees Celsius last night, down from minus 5.8 degree Celsius the previous night.
Intense clashes had rocked Kashmir Valley in 2016 following the death of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in July that year, resulting in the death of over 85 people.
Troops unearthed a hideout and recovered war-like stores, besides arresting an Over Ground Worker (OGW) of a militant outfit in the Kashmir valley on Thursday night, official sources said.
Security forces killed three militants in two different operations on Tuesday in north Kashmir, a defence ministry spokesman said. He said troops of 21 Rashtriya Rifles and the Special Operation Group of the Jammu and Kashmir police launched a joint operation at village Chalpora, Handwara, in the frontier district of Kupwara on Tuesday morning.
Alert troops foiled a major infiltration bid on the Line of Control in Machil sector at the border district of Kupwara on Tuesday.
The home minister took stock of the situation and was briefed about the steps taken to maintain peace along border areas as well as in the Valley, a security official said.
The number of terrorists killed in the past seven months this year is the highest in the same period over the past seven years.
Curfew remained in force in the five districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama, Shopian and Baramulla.
A flood alert was sounded in Srinagar city on Thursday as river Jhelum was flowing four feet above the danger mark after incessant rain, while 23 villages have been inundated by floods in south Kashmir districts of Anantnag and Kulgam.
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