6 militants, boy killed in Kashmir gunbattle

Despite repeated requests by community members and police for his release, he [the boy] was brutally killed by the terrorists

Police statement

srinagar — Six militants and a 12-year-old boy were killed while seven security personnel and 18 civilians were injured in gun battles in the Kashmir Valley which started on Thursday, police said on Friday.

Two militants and the boy, who had been taken hostage, died in a gunfight in Bandipora district’s Mir Mohalla area on Friday. The fighting had started on Thursday.

Both the militants were identified as Pakistanis and members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The police accused them of shooting the boy dead.

In Shopian district’s Ratnipora village, the security forces killed two militants following a gunfight which started on Friday, the police said. Clashes broke out between civilian protesters and security forces near the gunfight site.

The security forces used tear

smoke and pellet gunshots to quell the protests, leaving a dozen persons injured.

“Some of the injured sustained pellet shots,” doctors said in Shopian. In another gunbattle in Sopore’s Warpora area, two militants were killed at the same place where two policemen were injured earlier.

On Thursday, three militants were killed while seven security personnel and three civilians were injured in three different gun battles in the Kashmir Valley.

The police said the gunfight in Bandipora has ended while at the other two sites in Sopore and Shopian, searches were being carried out. All educational institutions in Sopore were closed and mobile Internet services suspended as a precaution.

Meanwhile, the family of a teacher Rizwan Asad Pandit have alleged that the young man was tortured, saying his bones and even his spine were broken and that his body bore cuts and clear signs he had been tortured. Pandit had died in police custody after he was detained. An investigation is ongoing. —