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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Kasmir Jihadis murder, burn houses of 'informers' |
| 2004-08-26 |
| Suspected rebels killed four alleged police informers and a policeman in separate shootings in insurgency-hit Kashmir, police said yesterday. Masked militants shot dead two Muslims overnight at close range in the village of Safarwaw Gund near Kangan, a well-known picnic spot 40km northeast of the summer capital Srinagar, a police spokesman said. Late on Monday, rebels also shot dead two other Muslims in the southern Pulwama and central Budgam districts at close range, the spokesman said. "The four were suspected to be police informers," the spokesman said, adding that three of the victims were killed after being abducted from their homes. In another attack late on Monday, suspected rebels shot dead a policeman at a busy bus stand in Sopore town, 50km north of Srinagar, police said. A taxi driver was injured in the shooting. The policeman worked with the counter-insurgency wing of the local force. No rebel group has claimed responsibility for the five killings. The insurgency has escalated recently despite a dialogue launched in January between India and Pakistan aimed at ending their nearly six-decade-old dispute over the future of the Himalayan region. Meanwhile, separatist guerrillas have started a campaign of arson in Jammu and Kashmir to "teach a lesson to informers and their families", police officials here said. The guerrillas set ablaze and reduced to ashes the house of Ali Akbar in Galuti village in Rajouri district, about 180 km north of winter capital Jammu on Monday night, officials said. Police believe the attack was a follow-up to a threat by the Hizbul Mujahideen group that it would act against people who had fled their homes in remote villages if they did not return. The threat had been made a few days ago through notices pasted on mosques in areas near the Pir Panjal mountain range. Akbar's house of bricks and mortar with eight rooms spacious was reduced to rubble in the fire allegedly lit by Hizb cadres. Akbar had fled Galuti following a gun battle in which security forces killed two Lashker-e-Taiba terrorists on December 20 last year. There are many like Akbar in remote villages who abandoned their properties and fled to the safety of towns to save themselves from the guerrillas. |
| Posted by:TS(vice girl) |