This 20 year old Kashmiri killed a militant, shot another

Displaying rare courage, a 20-year-old Kashmiri woman axed to death an armed Lashkar-e-Toiba commander and then, along with her 18-year-old brother, snatched guns and opened fire on two other militants, wounding one and forcing them to flee. The incident took place at Shahdra Sharief in the Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir late Sunday night.

Police identified the dead militant as Uzafa Shah, a Pakistani national who had been operating in the Rajouri-Poonch area for the last four years. He was said to be the only Lashkar commander in the area who had survived.

Rajouri SSP Shafqat Watali said police found a blood trail, suggesting that one of the militants who fled was wounded. One even left behind his weapon.

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First phase, Naxals cast their bullet

In one of the bloodiest starts to an election in recent times, nine security personnel, five polling officers and two civilians were killed today by Naxalites in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh as Phase I of polling saw moderate to brisk voting in 124 constituencies — the majority lie in the Naxal red corridor — across 17 states and Union Territories.

Late tonight, a fierce gunbattle was on in Malkangiri in Orissa after Naxalites attacked BSF and Special Operations Group personnel who were returning from the Vejingiwada forests in Kalimela. DIG (South West Range) Sanjeeb Panda said the Naxalites attacked the joint patrol by detonating landmines in MV-29 village. When reports last came in, the security personnel, who had been encircled,werereturningfire.Casualties, if any, were not known. “We have over 150 securitymen at the spot to fight the Naxalites,” IG (Operations) Sudhansu Sarangi said.

Nearly 70 incidents of poll disturbances, including gunbattles, attacks on polling parties and looting of electronic voting machines, were reported from these states where the overall polling percentage was estimated to be a healthy 60 per cent.

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Terror holds Jammu family hostage in 17 hour gunbattle

After weeks of being on the boil over the Amarnath land issue, Jammu was gripped with fear today after at least three militants, suspected to have sneaked in from Pakistan yesterday, killed four persons, including an Army junior commissioned officer, and held eight persons — four children, their mother and grandmother and two men — hostage for over 17 hours in a house on the outskirts of the city. The men were the children’s tutor and a neighbour.

The gunbattle between security forces and the militants, which began around 6 am in Chinnore barely 20 km from the international border — ended around 11 pm tonight when the last of the three militants, according to Jammu SSP Manohar Singh, was shot dead.

According to a jawan who went into the house around midnight, the children were said to be safe while one “male” was dead and another man had bullet injuries in the leg. Both women were safe — the grandmother escaped in the morning and the mother came out of the house after the encounter.

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