J&K compensates Sopore encounter victims

The Jammu and Kashmir government on Thursday paid cash relief to the families whose houses were destroyed and damaged in the last month's standoff between militants and the security forces in the Chinkipora locality of north Kashmir's Sopore town.

In the four-day long gunfight, three army troopers including a captain and two militants were killed.

The damage to property in the encounter included complete destruction of some houses and damage to over a dozen homes in the Chinkipora locality of the town.

The minister of state for revenue and rehabilitation, Nasir Aslam Wani, on Thursday visited the area and handed over cheques of Rs 1 lakh each to the 24 affected families.

Wani said, "The state government had taken rehabilitative action with speed as the affected families were sufferers of collateral damage in the operation to flush out holed up militants."

He said, "The government has always responded promptly to adequately compensate the families who were caught in this type of situation."

The pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik has also launched a fund raising campaign in capital Srinagar for helping rehabilitation of the affected families in the Sopore town.

"So far Malik has collected around Rs 5 lakh during his week-long donation campaign," a JKLF leader said in Srinagar.