A sixty-year-old civilian got killed and a constable of Indian Reserve Police 16th battalion [an armed wing of the Jammu and Kashmir Police] sustained critical injuries when suspected militants fired upon a unit of District Police in Sopore on Sunday afternoon.
Suspected militants fired pistol shots at the crowded 'Sunday Market', near Iqbal Market in this separatist-dominated apple town in northern Kashmir, in Baramulla district, at 12.35 p.m. The firing caused stampede as hundreds of people ran for life in different directions.
Superintendent of Police Sopore, Imtiyaz Hussain Mir, told The Hindu that an unidentified militant fired upon Constable Kishore Kumar when he was clearing the way for his police party, comprising a Rakhshak and a ‘bunker’ at the crowded Iqbal Market. Kishore Kumar sustained injuries as he got critically hit in his neck. The militants snatched away his AK-47 rifle and vanished into the crowd. Mr Mir said that Police did not retaliate for fear of civilian casualties and the militants escaped.
The constable was evacuated and rushed to Army’s 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar for treatment.
Mr. Mir said that one of the shots fired by the militant hit a 60-year-old civilian in his chest. He too was rushed to a Srinagar hospital but died near Pattan, on Sopore-Srinagar highway. A medical prescription recovered from his pocket carried the name of Sonaullah Dar. He was later on identified as Abdul Rashid Dar s/o Wali Mohammad Dar, resident of Drusu Khalisa Rafiabad.
