Yusuf Jameel
SRINAGAR, Feb 12 (1990) – Moslem militants assassinated an Indian intelligence agent on Monday in Srinagar, and clashes in the city killed a shopkeeper and wounded four paramilitary policemen, the government said.
T.K. Razdan, an inspector with the Indian Intelligence Bureau, was shot in the crowded Gow Kadal area, site of frequent clashes between demonstrators and security forces during the current surge of anti-India violence.
Police said Razdan was walking to his office when he was killed with a pistol fitted with a silencer. He was the fourth intelligence officer assassinated in the past two months by Kashmiri militant groups fighting for independence from India.
In other incidents on Monday, snipers opened fire on paramilitary policemen at Gojwara, Zaina Kadal, Nowhatta and Rajwari Kadal — all troube-prone neighbourhoods in Srinagar’s old city district.
A shopkeeper identified as Gulam Hassan Gagroo was killed in the crossfire in one of the clashes, police said. Four policemen were wounded in the incidents.
Independent sources say at least 100 people have been killed in clashes between security forces and militants since the government began a crackdown on January 20 on the secessionist movement in India’s only Moslem-majority state.
Jammu and Kashmir’s Governor Jagmohan said last week he would soon release an official casualty list.
A bomb destroyed an empty state-owned bus in Srinagar’s main Lal Chowk market area on Monday, injuring 12 people waiting at a bus stop, police said.
Militants have bombed government-owned property almost every day for the past six months during the secessionist campaign.
Indian troops shot and killed at least three protesters who stormed across a military ceasefire line dividing the disputed territory of Kashmir on Sunday, raising tension between Indian and Pakistan.
The two countries fought two of their three wars over Kashmir and tension has risen steadily as the Moslem uprising in Indian-ruled Kashmir has gathered strength in the past few weeks.
Shops remained closed in many areas of Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, although authorities relaxed a curfew for 12 hours on Monday.
Many residents in the valley kept their lights switched off on Sunday in response to a militant call for a “blackout” on the sixth anniversary of the death of Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front co-founder Maqbool Butt.
Butt was hanged in a Delhi jail in 1984 for murdering an intelligence official in Kashmir in the late 1960s .
