Death toll in Shopian firing incident climbs to 6

The situation in South Kashmir's Shopian district was tense after the police today recovered two more bodies, raising the death toll in last night's firing incident on a vehicle to six.


"Two more bodies were recovered in Shopian district this morning," a police spokesperson said. Police recovered the body of another militant, identified as Ashiq Hussain Bhat of Lashkar-e-Taiba, seven km from Pahnoo where the Army had fired upon two vehicles when they tried to flee from a Mobile Vehicle Check Post. They also fired on the Army and policemen, officials said.


Bhat was a resident of Rakh Karpan. Besides this, body of a civilian -- Gowhar Ahmed Lone of Chitragam in Shopian -- was recovered from another vehicle near the firing incident. The Army alleged that he was an overground worker of militant groups.


A Lashkar-e-Taiba militant and three civilians, also alleged to be overground workers for the militant group by the Army, were killed in a firing incident last night in south Kashmir's Shopian district after the ultras fired upon a joint check-point of the security forces.


A police official said a joint  MVCP (mobile vehicle check post) near Pohan in Shopian had signalled a car to stop, but it did not. The Army men were fired upon and they retaliated, in which a militant was killed. Police rushed to the spot and identified one of the deceased as Amir Ahmed Malik, who had joined the LeT militant group in July last year. -- PTI