SRINAGAR, 9 November 2004 — Unidentified gunmen late yesterday evening fired at and injured Altaf Ahmad Shah, son-in-law of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, senior Kashmir separatist leader and chairman of the breakaway group of All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC).

Police said Altaf, son-in-law of Geelani was entering his home at Buchpora residential locality in the city outskirts when some unidentified gunmen fired pistol shots at him.

The gunmen, they said had been waiting and when Altaf returned home yesterday evening they opened fire. Sources said he was immediately taken to Soura Medical Institute for treatment.

The Srinagar district police chief Javed Geelani told newsmen here that gunmen opened fire at Altaf from a close range near his house late in the evening.

“He was shifted to hospital. He has received a bullet wound in his neck. Doctors are now performing a surgery in the institute,” he said.

The head of the moderate faction and founder chairman of APHC Mirwaiz Omar Farooq has been spearheading a campaign to forge unity among the two estranged faction of the separatist groups.

The Indian union Home Minister Shivraj Patil returned to Delhi yesterday after concluding his three-day visit to the state.

Meanwhile, four militants were killed and four Indian soldiers injured in a suicide bombing and clashes in restive Kashmir yesterday. A militant with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up outside an army camp at Sundervani village in north Kashmir, police said. Four soldiers were injured, three of them critically.

Three rebels were killed when two army patrols were attacked in the northern district of Kupwara and the southern district of Pulwama, police said.

Security forces overnight seized two explosive-laden scooters headed for the state’s summer capital Srinagar, the Border Security Force said.

The explosives were enough to blow up 10 to 12 vehicles, it said.

Militants are fighting to break Kashmir away from India and make it part of Pakistan or independent. They often use scooter, car and bicycle bombs to target troops in the region, where a revolt against Indian rule has raged since 1989.

Patil’s arrival on Saturday saw an upsurge in violence across the Himayalan state that left at least 25 people dead.

During the weekend Kashmiri separatists cautiously welcomed an offer by Patil to let them visit Pakistan and confer with leaders there, saying it might help jumpstart a faltering talks process with the Indian government.

Police in Srinagar detained a leading separatist, Javed Mir, and 20 supporters of Syed Ali Geelani for holding a protest against the alleged rape of a woman and her 12-year-old daughter by troops in north Kashmir, police said. The army denied the rape allegation, but both it and the government launched probes into the incident that was reported Saturday evening near the northern town of Handwara.

Police yesterday baton-charged several thousand people in Handwara demanding action against the alleged rapists.