Panic gripped residents of Changia, Treva, Arnia, Pindi and Alla villages of Jammu district after the Pakistan Rangers resorted to unprovoked firing on villagers engaged in road construction on Thursday.

A militant was killed during a joint cordon and search operation by the Army and the police in Rajouri district on Thursday.“The cordon and search operation was launched this morning after specific intelligence inputs about the movement of militant(s) in the Mehari area. The contact (with the militants) was established this evening,” said a senior police officer.

The road will connect Changia village with a cremation ground near the International Border in Pindi village.

The sarpanch of Changia village, Kusum Lata, said although villagers were constructing the road nearly 500 m behind the fence, the Pakistan Rangers resorted to firing.

Fear-stricken villagers stopped the work midway, leaving their tractor and JCB machine behind.

“Unprovoked firing to stop people from repairing the road has caused panic among villagers,” the Changia sarpanch said. After a lull of more than a year, the Pakistan Rangers have again targeted the belt which used to bear the maximum brunt of shelling and firing from across the border.

There is a fear among farmers that firing by Pakistan at this point of time would halt the sowing of the paddy crop in the belt.

Meanwhile, A health worker was shot at and critically injured when militants opened fire on a police patrol party after they jumped a police barricade in the Yaripora area of south Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Thursday.

The militants escaped but left behind a car which had no registration plate.

The injured man has been identified as Imtiyaz Ahmad. He works as a basic health worker at Sub-District Hospital in Yaripora.

“He has a bullet wound in the chest and has been shifted to Srinagar for treatment after providing him basic medical care here,” said a health official from Yaripora.

The incident took place in the Kanjkulla area of Yaripora around 2.45 pm on Thursday.

“A barricade was erected by policemen on duty. They spotted a Santro car without a registration plate and signalled it to stop but the militants opened fire and fled,” a senior police officer from Kulgam said.

Courtesy: Daily Tribune:  5th June, 2020