At least twelve persons, including ten security men were injured in clashes with security forces in Ganderbal, Bandipora, Srinagar and Baramulla districts as authorities detained separatist leader Mohammad Yasin Malik during protests against the recent killing of youths in CRPF firing in Shopian of Kashmir.
Curfew was reimposed in Shopian town of south Kashmir on Thursday following death of a youth in firing by security forces that took the death toll in the area to five since Saturday.
One paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force trooper was killed and another wounded in a militant attack in south Kashmir's Shopian district on Monday evening.
The slain armymen are Sepoy Ilayaraja P, from TN, and Sepoy Gawai Sumedh Waman, from Maha.
Two militants of Hizbul Mujaheedin outfit were killed in over 30-hour-long fierce gunfight in south Kashmir Shopian district on Wednesday evening.
State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told a news conference immediately after his arrival from New Delhi that retired high court judge, Justice Muzaffar Jan, will head the enquiry which will be completed within a month.
The policemen -- former Superintendent of Police of Shopian Javed Iqbal Mattoo, Deputy Superintendent of Police Rohit Baskota, Station House Officer Shopian Shafiq Ahmed and Sub-inspector Gazi Abdul Rehman -- were released on payment of a bond of Rs 50, 000 each. The four had been accused of destroying evidence related to the case.
In a remarkable display of resilience and commitment to democracy, the residents of villages that had long been deprived of polling due to terrorist threats and separatist-sponsored boycott calls turned out in large numbers to cast ballots in the sixth phase of Lok Sabha polls on Saturday.
The Majlis-e-Mushawarat has called for a shutdown across Kashmir on Tuesday to protest against the report of the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Shopian rape and murder case.The Hurriyat Conference's moderate faction has supported the strike.The CBI's report on the Shopian case had sparked off an agitation in the Kashmir valley, when the families of the two women, who were allegedly raped and murdered, refused to accept the report, which said they had drowned.
While Jamaat cannot take part in the elections due to the ban imposed on it by the Union home ministry, it had shown interest in participating in the polls during the Lok Sabha elections if the ban were removed.
Tension gripped Shopian on Wednesday after a member of a group, who was spearheading the agitation against the rape and murder of two women in May, was found dead.
In the first targeted killing of the year, terrorists on Wednesday shot dead a worker from Punjab while another sustained injuries in Habba Kadal area of Srinagar, officials said.
Suspected militants on Monday night shot at and critically injured a sarpanch who joined Peoples Democratic Party earlier in the day in the second attack on a village head in Shopian district of Kashmir Valley in as many days.
A top Hizbul Mujaheedin commander and a foreign terrorist were killed in a fierce gunfight near Srinagar on Friday evening. A senior police officer said that troops of 44 Rashtriya Rifles and special operations group (SOG) of the state police jointly surrounded a forest area near Tharina village in south Kashmir'a Shopian district, 70 kms from Srinagar.
Lt Col Karamveer Singh said his son has been 'wrongly and arbitrarily' named in the FIR.
More than 40 per cent of the 908 candidates contesting the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir are Independents, leading to claims that a large number of them have been propped up by the Bharatiya Janata Party to divide votes.
An army major, a trooper and three militants were killed in a nearly 24-hour-long gunfight, which ended on Saturday in south Kashmir's Shopian district.
They were wanted by law for their complicity in a series of terror crimes, including attack on security establishments and civilian atrocities.
Militants shot at and killed a 20-year-old woman in south Kashmir's Shopian district late on Tuesday evening.
This was the first encounter between terrorists and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir in more than three months.
Passing an order in the Public Interest Litigation filed before the division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Barin Ghosh and Justice Mohammad Yaqoob Mir, the court ordered the arrest, preparation of DNA profiles and narco-analysis of the four suspended police officers and their production before the Registrar judicial for collection of their blood samples so that their DNA profiles are prepared.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has found some loopholes in the probe conducted by the Special Investigative Team of the Jammu and Kashmir police in the Shopian rape and murder case. The team, which has started the investigation from the beginning, will also be taking the advice of forensic experts on whether exhuming the bodies of Neelofar and his sister-in-law Aasiya, who were raped and murdered, will serve any purpose, official sources said.
According to reports, three other terrorists are holed up inside a house in Kellar.
In 2022 Nanaji Dembi pulled down the Hurriyat office board in Srinagar, an act of defiance that grabbed headlines. Despite such nationalistic bravado, the BJP has denied him a ticket for the assembly election.
In a new twist to the Shopian case, forensic scientists have found that one of the two victims was a virgin, thereby ruling out the possibility of a rape. A special CBI forensic team on Monday collected samples from the bodies of the two women after exhuming them nearly four months after the incident. Forensic scientists from the AIIMs, who accompanied the CBI team, have found the hymen of 17-year-old Aasiya Jan was intact.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday took charge of the controversial Shopian rape and murder case from the Special Investigation Team.
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Tuesday evening formally decided to hand over the Shopian rape and murder case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.The CBI will probe the mysterious deaths of Neelofar Jan, 22, and her sister-in-law Aasiya Jan, 17, whose bodies were found on May 30. The government's decision comes a day after Chief Minister Omar Abdullah made his first public appearance in Shopian and assured the people of the town that the culprits would be punished.
Shopian which has been in the news for last three months after the rape and murder of two young women, was on the boil yet again on Thursday. The trouble in the town, 65 kms from Srinagar erupted following clashes between groups of youth and police on Thursday morning.
The Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Saturday directed exhumation of the bodies of two women allegedly raped and murdered in Shopian last month to collect their DNA samples subject to the consent of their family.
Before the issuance of the proclamation orders, the court had issued open-ended non-bailable warrants against all five, he added.
Responding to the appeal made by the chief justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, residents of Shopian in southern Kashmir on Thursday called off their 48-day strike, which had started after the rape and murder of two local women, allegedly by security forces.Shopian had erupted into protests after the rape and murder of Asiya Jan, 17, and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jan, 22, on May 30. Normal life had come to a complete halt.
Tral, the former hotbed of terrorism, rocks to the music of democracy.
The terrorists attacked the guard room of the court complex around 9 pm and snatched five self-loading rifles from the policemen posted there.
Early on Thursday, November 9, 2023, an encounter between the security forces and the outlawed The Resistance Front began in the Kathohalan area of Shopian in Jammu and Kashmir.
Will Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, who gets his orders from New Delhi, call the shots or allow a democratically elected government to independently govern, questions Ramesh Menon.
The withdrawal of the candidature by DPAP leaders on the last day on August 30 is seen as a boost to the NC-Congress alliance.
With 19 border polling stations along the Line of Control in Rajouri and Poonch, a contingency plan has been worked out to deal with cross-border shelling though chances are negligible given the ongoing ceasefire between India and Pakistan that came into effect in February 2021, officials said.
Modi began his nearly 45-minute speech by welcoming the people who attended the rally in the Kashmiri language. "This time, the (assembly) election will decide the future of Jammu and Kashmir, which has remained the target of foreign powers since Independence," he told the gathering.
Four police officers, accused of destruction of evidence and dereliction of duty in the Shopian rape and murder case, on Saturday moved their bail application before the sessions court in the southern Kashmiri town, following Friday's apex court order in the matter.The apex court had also set aside the earlier state high court order, directing that any bail application moved by the accused officers before any court, should be referred to the division bench of the high court.
