We want freedom: 3 militants escape as Kashmiris pelt stones at security forces
Srinagar: All the three militants trapped in a village of Jammu and Kashmir's southern Anantnag district on Thursday following the security forces launched a cordon-and-search operation are reported to have escaped amid protests by residents.
Surging crowds foiled the operation by hurling rocks at the security forces amid chants of ‘we want freedom’. The security forces opened fire over the heads of the protesters who offered stiff resistance. The former were laying siege around the cluster of private houses in Warhama village of Pahalgam area of Anantnag where the militants led by Bashir Lashkari were hiding, witnesses said.
The troops of the Army’s Rashtriya Rifles were earlier joined by the members of J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and the CRPF jawans to lay siege around Warhama to conduct searches following inputs about the presence of militants, the police sources said.
But the moment they arrived at the area, people in large numbers came out to resist. During the ensuring clashes, the militants escaped the area, reports said.
A college student had died in the security forces’ firing on stone-pelting mobs during a similar operation in a remote village of neighbouring Shopian district on Tuesday, triggering shutdowns and protests in parts of the Valley.
An alliance of key separatist leaders has called for one-day general strike in Kashmir on Friday to mourn and protest the student’s killing following which the authorities have suspended class work in the Valley’s schools and colleges for the day.
Earlier the Army’s 25 Rashtriya Rifles and the J&K police’s SOG launched a cordon-and-search-operation in Loran area of Mandi tehsil in frontier Poonch district late Wednesday night following inputs about the presence of around six militants.
The police sources said that about half a dozen militants are reported to have sneaked into the area through Janewalui Gali from PoK during recent firing and shelling incidents along the Line of Control (LoC).
