SRINAGAR, 4 May 2005 — Militants yesterday gunned down a town council chairman and three policemen at Pattan, 29 km from here in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
Police said a group of four militants sprayed Mohammad Ramzan Mian and two of his security guards with automatic gunfire early in the morning. All three died instantly. The security guards were identified as Zahoor Ahmad and Riyaz Ahmad.
Mian was shopping in Pattan’s main market after he had supervised a cleanliness drive in the town when the assailants opened fire.
The militants also fled with the automatic rifles of the dead guards.
A senior police officer who did not want to be identified said a police party that was sent to the scene was fired upon by the militants and a policeman killed. The dead policeman was identified as Mohammad Altaf.
More than half a dozen elected municipal councilors have been killed in militant attacks since civic elections in February.
Separately, security forces shot dead six infiltrators on the de facto border with Pakistan, the Defense Ministry said.
The suspected militants were caught crossing the Line of Control that divides Kashmir in the Krishna Gahti area of Poonch district, 245 km northwest of Jammu.
