SRINAGAR, India, 14 June 2008 — In the first major militant strike this year, five Indian Border Roads Organization (BRO) personnel including a commanding officer were gunned down by militants in an ambush in the Kishtwar district of the Jammu region late yesterday.
Police said the BRO personnel were working on the widening of the road on the Symthan top, the high point on the highway, that connects south Kashmir’s Anantnag district with the twin districts of Kishtwar and Doda in the Jammu region.
“Militants sprayed bullets on our personnel who were working on the road this evening. Five people including Lt. Col. Ajay Verma, assistant executive engineer S.K. Singh and three other personnel were killed in the ambush,” BRO chief engineer Brig. Bhutani told Arab News here.
“The shooting is still on and army and police reinforcements have been sent to the area,” Bhutani said.
The idea of a mountain highway passing through the difficult and wooded terrain linking Kashmir Valley with Kishtwar and Doda districts was conceived and executed during the time Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was chief minister of the state in the late 1970s.
The militant strike, for which no group claimed responsibility immediately, comes ahead of state assembly elections scheduled for later this year.
Earlier yesterday, suspected separatist militants threw a grenade near a crowded marketplace in Baramulla town to the north of the region’s summer capital, Srinagar. At least 12 people were wounded, police said, adding the grenade was aimed at an army patrol.
