Have recovered militants’ diary, phone: J&K Police

SRINAGAR A day after a civilian driver was killed and three soldiers injured in an ambush attack in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said on Friday that it has recovered a mobile phone and a diary belonging to the militants.

The militants had attacked the soldiers when they were returning after a massive daylong search operation in the district.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, superintendent of police, Shopian, Tahir Khan, said that police had recovered a mobile phone and a diary belonging to the militants who carried out the attack on Thursday night. Apart from these, empty cartridge and a magazine were also recovered.

He added that the phone and diary yielded reference to three local militants and a number of over-ground workers who had helped the militants in reaching the spot and carry out the attack.

“Abbas, Ishfaq Ahmed Thokar and Giyas-ul-Islam are the names we have found. We have also found some other links which establish that these three are behind the attack,” Khan said. The hunt for the militants is on, police said.

Meanwhile, the local media said hundreds of people attended the funeral prayers of the civilian driver Nazir Ahmad Sheikh, who was driving the private vehicle hired by the army. Sheikh was laid to rest at his ancestral graveyard in Kachdoora, Shopian.

Following intelligence inputs about the presence of militants, the cordon and search operation was started in Shopian early Thursday morning.

Reports said that as troops were returning after a 12-hour search operation in Shopian and carrying out a “reverse sweep” of Chowdari Gund and Kellar area of Shopian, militants attacked them.

‘Reverse sweep’, reports had said, is a term used by the army in which they carry out a surprise check of a location after having combed it earlier in the day.

The operation, for many Kashmiris, brought back memories of the 1990s when such massive door-to-door searches were common in the Valley.

Some locals had alleged vandalism by forces during the search but police has denied it. NEW DELHI At 2.20pm on Friday when the court upheld the death sentence of the four convicts in the Delhi 2012 gang-rape case, the mother of the 23-year-old victim said she was happy with the verdict.

“We have got justice,” said the mother.

Hours before the verdict, HT had spoken to the mother who demanded death penalty for the perpetrators of the brutality on her daughter.

“The court must sentence them to death. We won’t settle for life imprisonment. I am alive and kept myself strong only to see this day,” the mother had told HT over phone on Thursday night.

“No, I won’t visit any temple. My fight against them is my religion and duty. I will go to court and pray that they are hanged,” she had said.

The 23-year-old physiotherapy intern would have turned 28 on May 10.

On the evening of December 16, 2012, the young woman was returning home after watching a film — Life of Pi — with her friend when she was raped by six men and thrown off the bus.

The woman died of her injuries at a Singapore hospital on December 29.The SC announced the verdict exactly four years, four months and eighteen days since the evening of 2012.

The four convicts Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar, Akshay Thakur and Mukesh Singh had challenged the death sentence awarded to them by the Delhi high court.

The father of the young woman Badri Nath Singh said he will sleep peacefully tonight.

“She would have turned 28 on May 10 if she had lived. Today’s verdict is a gift for her,”

PHONE AND DIARY YIELDED REFERENCE TO THREE LOCAL MILITANTS AND OVERGROUND WORKERS WHO HELPED THEM IN THE ATTACK

Singh said.

He, however, rued the delay that the courts had taken in delivering justice, and wondered about the fate of other rape victims.

“What about justice for others whose cases are pending in courts,” Singh asked.

But the SC verdict, he added, would give a boost to rape survivors seeking justice.

The parents, who have started a “Nirbhaya Jyoti Trust” to help rape victims, also stressed that their daughter should be identified by her name. Sections of the media have called her Nirbhaya, as the law prohibits naming a rape victim.

“Those who commit such crimes should hang their heads, not us,” Singh said.