Srinagar: Two army soldiers and two civilian porters were killed on Thursday (October 24) in a militant attack near the north Kashmir ski resort of Gulmarg. A third soldier succumbed to his injuries on October 25. Two more remain injured.
A senior police officer said that the incident took place in the Nagin area of Botapathri near Gulmarg on Thursday evening when suspected militants opened gunfire at a vehicle of the Rashtriya Rifles that was part of a convoy moving in the area.
Botapathri, which is close to the Line of Control, is some six kilometres from Gulmarg. Due to its strategic location, Botapathri was closed for civilians, but was thrown open for tourists after Article 370 was read down, although official permission from security agencies is necessary for visiting the area.
The details of the attack are sketchy, with top army and police officials declining to divulge more details.
While the attackers, whose numbers have not been confirmed by police so far, are believed to have fled after targeting the army vehicle, additional reinforcements have been sent to the area to carry out searches for the perpetrators.
In a post on X, the army’s strategic Chinar Corps based in Srinagar said that an exchange of gunfire followed by a brief firefight took place between the army and terrorists in Botapathri, which is in Baramulla district. “Details are being ascertained,” it said.
Two slain soldiers were identified as riflemen Kaisar Ahmad Shah and Jeevan Singh. The third soldier has not been identified yet.
So far, no militant outfit has claimed responsibility for the attack, but security forces suspect a group of newly infiltrated militants.
According to reports, the slain porters have been identified as Mushtaq Ahmed Choudhary, a resident of Nowshehra in the Boniyar town of Baramulla, and Zahoor Ahmad Mir, who resided in the Barnate village of Baramulla.
J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah and Peoples’ Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti condemned the attack on X.
The deadly attack took place hours after a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh was shot and injured in the Awantipora police district of south Kashmir by suspected militants.
The victim, identified as Shubham Kumar, a resident of Bijnor district in Uttar Pradesh, escaped with minor injuries in the targeted attack which took place in the Batgund village of Tral town in Pulwama district on Thursday morning, with the attackers fleeing from the area after the shooting.
The attack in Gulmarg is the fourth such incident in Kashmir after Abdullah was sworn in as chief minister of the Union territory of J&K. The chief minister is on a visit to New Delhi, where he has met Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as Union home, defence and transport ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari respectively in the last two days.
On October 20, a Kashmiri doctor and six workers were killed in a militant attack where two unidentified gunmen surfaced inside the base camp of Apco Infra Ltd, a Lucknow-based private infrastructure development company in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, and resorted to indiscriminate firing before fleeing.
The slain doctor and other workers were employed by Apco as part of a team that has been building the strategic Z-Morh tunnel on the Srinagar-Leh highway. The tunnel, which is expected to cut down the time taken to mobilise troops from Kashmir to Ladakh, was expected to open this month.
On October 18, 30-year-old Ashok Chauhan, a migrant worker from Bihar, was abducted from the Malhura area of Shopian in south Kashmir, Later, his bullet-riddled body was recovered near the Rambiara river, prompting the police to launch a probe into his killing.
The string of attacks after Abdullah’s swearing-in ceremony is likely to bring his government under an intense spotlight, even though law and order in J&K and security are under the control of the BJP-led Union government.
The back-to-back attacks are reminiscent of a spate of the targeted killings of migrant workers, the minority Kashmiri Hindus and security personnel in the autumn of 2021, which had prompted many Kashmiri Pandits and workers to flee the valley.
This piece, first published at 10.23 pm on October 24, 2024, was updated and republished at 1.52 pm on October 25.
