Jammu & Kashmir: Assembly elections

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

Terrorists backed by Pakistan kill civilians across Kashmir to disrupt polls in December, 2014

The Times of India

Saleem Pandit, December 06 2014

The spots of serial attacks on December5, 2014

Four terror attacks rocked Kashmir as Pakistan-backed militants struck a fortified military camp at Uri in Baramulla district as well as police and civilian targets in three other districts. At least 21 have been killed, among them eight soldiers, including the commanding officer in Uri, three policemen, two civilians and the remaining militants. The attacks in Uri, Srinagar, Shopian and Pulwama were seen aimed at disrupting the state elections which have witnessed record voter turnouts despite threats. The attacks came a day after Jamaatud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, speaking in Lahore, rejected the J&K polls, saying they we are no substitute to plebiscite.

The worst attack was in Uri where the present PM Modi also campaigned. All six militants who attacked the base were killed by the Army , and two other terrorists were shot dead in Soura, near Srinagar. In Uri, 100km from Srinagar and 18km from the LoC, terrorists hurled grenades and fired from automatic guns, trying to storm an artillery base of the 32 Field regiment. The fidayeen broke into two groups, one headed for the main gate and the other for the barracks. As the six fidayeen tried to storm the Uri base, a fierce gun battle followed in which commanding officer Lt Col Sankalp Kumar and seven soldiers along with three policemen were killed. Firing at the barracks that stored kerosene, the fidayeen set off a fire that charred four soldiers. By 11.30am, the encounter was over and all six fidayeen had been killed. The attacks set off a massive security alert across several cities and in Delhi, Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag briefed Modi. The hand of banned terror outfit Lashkare-Taiba is being widely suspected.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed also told his supporters in Lahore that Pakistanis and Kashmiris were blood brothers and elections in Kashmir were no substitute to plebiscite.

In Ahmad Nagar in Soura area of Srinagar district, terrorists inside a car fired at the police during a routine check. A terrorist -believed to be a Lashkar `commander' -was killed when police retaliated while another took refuge in a civilian home. Police and paramilitary forces cordoned off the house and in the ensuing encounter, the second terrorist was killed. Over 50km from Srinagar, in Shopian, a hand grenade attack on a police station shattered the window panes of the DSP's residence. In Tral, Pulwama district, a lone terrorist threw a grenade at a bus stand in which 51-year-old Ghulam Hasan Gojri and 27-year-old Mohammed Jamal succumbed to their injuries. The attacker was untraced till reports last came in. Speaking on condition of anonymity , a senior Army officer commanding the operation confirmed that it was a “fidayeen“ (suicide) attack in Uri.