Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR: Four policemen have been killed in an attack by separatist militants near the northern town of Sopore.
Officials say militants fired at a patrol party of the Potkhah police post at Hygam village at 6 pm.
The slain policemen included a head constable, a constable and two SPOs or Special Police Officers who are temporarily engaged on stipend.
Sources say the policemen came under fire soon after they had got off their vehicle. They say the militants brought a volley of fire on them and did not let them retaliate.
The militants also decamped with the police weapons.
No militant group has so far said that its men carried out the attack.
This is the second major attack on the police and paramilitaries in Kashmir valley this year. Five CRPF or Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed in suburban Srinagar last month.
The fresh attack has happened barely five days after the police claimed to have busted a module of the Lashkar e Toiba militant group operating in Sopore.
Separatist violence has been on the decline for many years now in Kashmir where tens of thousands of people have died since violence erupted in 1989. The police put the number of militants still active in the valley at 78.
