Additional Deputy Commissioner, Rajouri, Raj Kumar Thapa and his two staff members were seriously injured when an artillery shell hit his residence in Rajouri town
A property damaged after heavy firing and shelling by Pakistan military overnight across the Line of Control and International Border, in Rajouri district, Jammu and Kashmir. (PTI Photo)
Srinagar: Five more persons including a senior government official and a child were killed and half a dozen other civilians injured in the Pakistani artillery shelling across Jammu and Kashmir early Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, Pakistan -origin drones struck several locations in Jammu, Udhampur and Srinagar shortly after dawn. The Kashmiri capital Srinagar was rocked by three explosions which was followed by air raid warning sirens. No casualties have been reported in these drone attacks.
Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, while confirming the death of the Additional District Development Commissioner of Rajouri Raj Kumar Thapa in the Pakistani shelling said in a post on 'X', "Devastating news from Rajouri. We have lost a dedicated officer of the J&K Administration Services. Just yesterday he was accompanying the Deputy CM around the district & attended the online meeting I chaired. Today the residence of the officer was hit by Pak shelling as they targeted Rajouri town killing our Additional District Development Commissioner Sh Raj Kumar Thappa. I’ve no words to express my shock & sadness at this terrible loss of life. May his soul rest in peace."
Mr. Thapa was killed and two of his staff were injured when a mortar shell fired from across the Line on Control (LoC) landed in his official residence in the Rajouri town.
A two-year-old girl Asha Noor and 33-year-old Muhammad Shuaib, son of Muhammad Shahid, both residents of also from Uttar Pradesh, were killed in the shelling elsewhere in the town, the police sources said, adding that the child’s mother and father were critically injured and have been evacuated to hospital.
A woman identified as Rashida Bi wife of Munshi Khan was killed in the shelling at Keri Kangra in the Mendhar area of frontier Poonch district while Ashok Kumar son of Baldev Raj of Bidipur Jatta village died in RS Pura area of the Jammu district, the officials said.
With these killings, the death toll in the cross-border shelling in J&K areas in the past three days has risen to 21 -twenty civilians including three women and five children and a non-commissioned officer (Lance Naik) of the Indian Army Dinesh Kumar.
During a morning walk, this correspondent saw smoke billowing from shrubs in Srinagar's Zabarwan hills after a huge blast.
The residents of Lasjin, a city suburb, said that a projectile landed in the house compound of one Ghulam Mohiuddin Bhat without causing any damage.
As heavy engagement went off in the Srinagar skies, the defence authorites activated surface to air missile systems, a report said.
A source in the border town of Uri said that heavy artillery shelling from across the LoC started in the Garkote area, forcing the residents to hide themselves in panic rooms or move to safer locations.
( Source : Deccan Chronicle )
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