On a day when Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed called Kashmir “a peaceful place like any other State” while inaugurating the tulip garden in Srinagar, militants struck thrice in three hours killing three policemen and injuring a police officer and a civilian on Monday.
“It was a bad day for the police on Monday as we lost three of our personnel in militant attacks,” Director-General of Police K. Rajendra told The Hindu . “We are looking into the incidents.”
Mr. Rajendra said even though the attacks happened on the same day, they did not seem to be coordinated or part of a larger plan.
According to the police, three of their personnel — head constable Mushtaq Ahmad and constables Shabir Hussain and Nazeer Ahmad Wani — were killed in Shopian in south Kashmir when militants attacked the passenger vehicle they were travelling in.
The militants, wearing Army fatigues, stopped the vehicle around 1.20 p.m. at Ashipora in Shopian and ordered the three policemen to step out. The vehicle was also carrying civilian passengers and the militants checked the identity cards of the policemen before shooting them.
Senior police officers said the three cops were returning from a neighbouring village where they had gone for a routine investigation. They were unarmed at the time of their death.
Around an hour before the attack in Shopian, militants shot at a police officer travelling in a local bus on the Baramulla highway in Pattan.
“One of our sub-inspectors, Ghulam Mustafa, of the armed police was shot at by two militants. They boarded the same bus that Mustafa was travelling in and shot him,” police spokesperson Manoj Pandita said.
In the third incident, unidentified gunmen shot at a former militant, Rafiq Ahmad, at the Tral bus stand in south Kashmir around 2.45 p.m. Ahmad is said to be stable.
