SRINAGAR, 15 September 2003 — Thirteen people, most of them civilians, were killed and six others injured in a continuing wave of separatist violence in Kashmir overnight and yesterday, police said. Suspected rebels opened fire yesterday on an Indian Army unit on patrol in the Ponda Udhyanpur region of Doda district, 185 kilometers (115 miles) north of Kashmir’s winter capital Jammu, killing a soldier and injuring three others, a police spokesman said.
In the second attack, a police official escorting a group of civilians was killed when suspected rebels tossed a grenade at them in the Sarjankotal region of Doda district yesterday. A civilian also died, while another was injured, the police source said.
Suspected militants shot dead a Muslim, Bagh Hussain, in the village of Lower Saim in Rajouri district overnight, police said, while his brother-in-law was abducted by the same rebels and his throat was slit yesterday.
Both of the victims were school teachers, police said.
In the same district another Muslim was killed when he was caught in the cross-fire between Indian troops and rebels.
Police said suspected rebels shot dead two more civilians, one of them a Sikh, Jang Bahadur Singh, in the districts of Anantnag and Baramulla late Saturday evening.
A Muslim man was killed and two of his relatives injured when they stepped over an abandoned explosive device in the village of Munwan in northern Kuwpara district overnight, police said. Four more people, including a policeman and a rebel, were killed elsewhere in Kashmir overnight and yesterday, police said.
Meanwhile, troops have arrested a senior commander of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kashmir’s Doda district, 200 kilometers south of Jammu, an official said yesterday.
He said that troops caught Mohammed Shehzad, 24, after he was injured during an encounter in Doda district’s Neel area.
He added that Shehzad was originally a resident of Pakistan’s Faislabad town, but had sneaked into Indian territory from across the border along with 10 associates four years ago.
Speaking from army headquarters on the outskirts of Jammu, the militant told reporters that he had been operating in different places in Kashmir, including Banihal, Kishtwar and upper reaches of Udhampur district.
“I have supervised a series of operations against Indian security forces and soft targets in Doda and its surrounding areas,” he said.
Shehzad claimed that he had received “arms training in various training camps organized by Lashkar-e-Taiba at Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan’s Kashmir.”
