BSNL employee killed, 2 injured after militants open fire in Kashmir’s Sopore

Srinagar: One employee was killed and two other sales assistants at a Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) franchise were injured after suspected militants opened fire in Jammu and Kashmir’s Sopore town on Monday.

The militants opened firing at Iqbal Market in Sopore, 52 kms from here, which resulted in injuries to three persons, a police officer said.

Two of the three injured staff have been identified as Ghulam Muhammad and Muhammad Rafiq. The injured were rushed to a local hospital, where doctors referred them to a hospital here for treatment, the officer said.

He said it seemed to be an attack on telecom operators as militants had threatened them in the past. It was second such attack in less than 48 hours in Sopore area.

Suspected ultras had hurled a grenade at a residential compound where a mobile transmission tower was installed on the intervening night of May 23 and 24.

Although officials were tight-lipped as to why the militants were targeting telecom installations, sources said the ultras were upset about "theft" of their communication equipment from mobile transmission towers in Sopore and surrounding areas earlier this month.

The militants had allegedly installed communication equipment atop the towers of private and PSU companies.

Earlier a group of armed youth wearing bandannas had raided the outlets of three leading telecom companies Airtel, Aircel and Vodafone in the town and allegedly thrashed some of their employees. This happened a few days after a communication device allegedly installed by militants on an Airtel mobile tower in the town’s Badambagh locality was removed by the service provider.