Author: Mukhtar Ahmad
in Srinagar
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: August 1, 2000
At least 27 persons,
most of them Amarnath-bound pilgrims, were killed and 36 others were injured,
many critically, in heavy shooting in the health resort town of Pahalgam
late Tuesday evening.
The authorities imposed
curfew and increased security following the attack.
Seventeen of the victims
were pilgrims, six local residents, two security officials and two militants.
The pilgrims were identified
as Naresh Goyal, his daughter Niha, son Gittu (all from Meerut), Hazara
Singh (from Pathankhot), Niranjan Puri and a sadhu, Narayanan.
The policemen were Irshad
Ahmed and Surjeet Singh.
The militants were killed
in the heavy exchange of fire that followed between militants and security
forces, a senior police officer said.
He said the armed militants
suddenly appeared at the heavily guarded Pahalgam base camp of the cave
shrine-bound pilgrims and opened fire.
The militants, sources
said, fired indiscriminately near a hotel, on the pilgrims and a camp of
the Central Reserved Police Force near River Lidder in Pahalgam, which
was humming with activity as hundreds on their way to the shrine were stranded
following heavy rain along the 40 km dirt track.
The sources said the
militants lobbed six hand-grenades and followed it by heavy firing.
Security forces deployed around the health resort retaliated.
This is the first major
strike by Kashmiri militants in Pahalgam during the yatra.
In 1994, the Harkatul
Ansar had banned the pilgrimage.
Even though there was
no 'ban' this year, the Jammu and Kashmir government had made elaborate
arrangements for the safety of pilgrims. Thousands of army and paramilitary
personnel, besides police, were deployed in Pahalgam.
The entire area, a police
officer said, was sanitised, days before the yatra began on July 15.
No one has owned responsibility
for the attack.
Jammu and Kashmir chief
minister Dr Farooq Abdullah has condemned the killing.
Police said that the
pilgrims came from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Orissa.
