Sopore -- known as the 'apple town' of Kashmir -- is fast gaining notoriety for becoming a safe haven of terrorists, especially of Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Tayiba, as it has seen a sudden spurt in violence during the last six weeks.
According to the official, two Punjab residents were arrested following the recovery of one of the biggest narcotic haul this year from Banihal area along Jammu-Srinagar national highway.
The area has been cordoned off and counter-operations are in progress.
Despite assurances by the Jammu and Kashmir government, over 100 more terror-stricken panches and sarpanches announced their resignations through paid advertisements in the valley.
Security forces gunned down five militants in north Kashmir's Ganderbal district on Thursday night.
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.
The Northern Railways said it has cancelled around 17 trains and diverted around 12 others, while traffic has been suspended at four locations due to waterlogging.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday asserted that Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, will not be restored even if Congress stalwart and late PM Indira Gandhi comes down from heaven.
In his maiden rally in Kashmir Valley after quitting the Congress last month, he said only a government with a two-thirds majority in Parliament can ensure the restoration of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
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.
Power supply in the snow-bound Valley has become almost normal with the state electricity department ensuring working of almost all the 19 power stations including those in far flung Lolab and Tangdhar areas of north Kashmir.
The nightlong fierce gunfight in north Kashmir Kupwara district ended early on Tuesday morning after the three holed up militants were killed.
Cold wave conditions continued unabated in Kashmir Valley with minimum temperatures remaining several degrees below the freezing point.
After occupying it for over two decades, paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force vacated the Firdous Cinema located in the old city, thereby meeting a long pending demand of the locals.
The terrorists attacked a police station in Handwara area of Kupwara by resorting to firing and also lobbed a grenade, a police officer said.
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.
Normal life was affected in Kashmir for the third consecutive day on Wednesday because of the curfew in several parts of the valley to prevent deterioration of law and order in the wake of killing of a youth allegedly in army firing in Baramulla.
A 22-year-old civilian was killed allegedly in firing by security forces in a remote village of Baramulla district in north Kashmir, leading to protests in the area, official sources said on Friday night.
The home minister also reviewed the preparations for the annual Amarnath pilgrimage scheduled to begin on June 29.
The NIA will seek their transit remand and bring them to Delhi for further questioning
Congress rebel Satish Sharma, who defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party's Rajeev Sharma by nearly 7,000 votes and relegated his former party's heavyweight Tara Chand to the third position in the Chhamb seat, has found a place in the Omar Abdullah government, representing the Jammu region in the dispensation.
Inflencer and vlogger Shenaz Treasury chooses her favourite quiet spots.
The incident took place at the shop-cum-residence of BJP leader Wasim Bari, earlier district president of the party, where some motorcycle-borne terrorists attacked the three from a close range with a silencer-fitted revolver, they said.
Priyanka Gandhi made a low-key visit to Kashmir during which she offered prayers at the Mata Kheer Bhawani shrine in Ganderbal district, officials said on Friday.
There were no reports of anyone getting hurt in these clashes.
Former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and Jammu and Kashmir Police engaged in a Twitter spat on Wednesday after she claimed that she was placed under house arrest to prevent her from visiting an area in north Kashmir.
The immediate challenge for the Centre and the home ministry is to ensure the conduct of assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir and restoration of its statehood.
The killing of a youth, by the army in northern Kashmir's Baramulla district, triggered protests on Saturday, even as the army claimed that the youth had forcibly entered their camp and injured a soldier.The youth, identified as 25-year old Sajad Ahmad Ganai, was asked to stop by a guard manning the main gate of an army camp in north Kashmir's Wattergam village in Baramulla.When the youth did not heed the warning, the sentry opened fire, killing him instantly, sources said.
Three civilians were injured in a powerful explosion in North Kashmir's Kupwara district on Tuesday afternoon.
Two days after a village head was gunned down in north Kashmir's Baramulla district, scare and panic has struck the elected village heads and representatives in the region, forcing many of them to resign.
On the Opposition's poll promise of statehood restoration, Shah said, "I want to ask Farooq Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi, who is going to restore the statehood. You cannot give it back. Why are you misleading the public?"
The properties of Bashir Ahmad Pir, a resident of the Babarpora area of Kralpora in the north Kashmir district, was attached by the agency as part of the action against the militants operating from Pakistan, they said.
Five paramilitary, Central Reserve Police Force troopers were injured, two of them critically, in a powerful blast at Sopore in north Kashmir Baramulla district on Sunday morning.
Life in the Kashmir valley was affected on Monday by a protest shutdown against the killing of two youth in firing allegedly by the army on Sunday.
A top militant commander of the Laskar-e-Tayiba was killed in a fierce encounter in North Kashmir's Sopore on Tuesday afternoon.
Two 'foreign' militants were killed in a daylong encounter in Chattergul village of north Kashmir's Ganderbal district on Sunday.
Large parts of north India reeled under numbing cold on Tuesday with the mercury remaining below freezing point at most places in Jammu and Kashmir, while dense fog in the early hours of the morning hit road and rail traffic movement.
An unidentified terrorist on Thursday killed in an encounter with security forces in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.
"Tayab alias Abu Talha, the LeT operational commander for Kashmir, was killed in Hanjipora village of north Kashmir Kupwara district on Wednesday," a police spokesman said in Srinagar.
The Udhampur-based northern command is committed to eliminate the scourge of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, the Army said on Tuesday, as it paid tribute to four soldiers who died in a gunfight with heavily armed terrorists in Doda district.
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