A DAY after a deadly terror attack at a tunnel construction site in J&K’s Ganderbal left seven people dead, security forces on Monday launched a massive combing operation in the area, with National Investigation Agency (NIA) sleuths scouring the site for evidence. Army, CRPF and police personnel fanned out in the areas around the construction site to track down the terrorists and their supporters involved in one of the deadliest attacks on non-local labourers in Kashmir, officials said. “So far, no progress has been made in terms of arrests but we are hopeful of developing some leads that will lead us to the terrorists involved in the attack,” an official said. A doctor and six labourers were killed when terrorists struck a tunnel construction site on the Srinagar-Leh national highway in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ganderbal district on Sunday.

 

The unidentified terrorists carried out the attack when the labourers and other staff working on the tunnel project at Gund in Ganderbal had returned to their camp late in the evening, the officials said. They said the terrorists -- believed to be at least two -- opened indiscriminate fire on the group of labourers that included both locals and non-locals. While two labourers died on the spot, four others and the doctor succumbed to their injuries subsequently, the officials said, adding that five people are undergoing treatment for injuries. The deceased have been identified as Dr Shahnawaz, Faheem Nasir, Kaleem, Mohammad Hanif, Shashi Abrol, Anil Shukla and Gurmeet Singh.

 

 

FORMER Chief Minister and National Conference President Farooq Abdullah on Monday lashed out at Pakistan for perpetrating terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, saying Islamabad will have to stop terror incidents here if it wants to have friendly relations with India. Abdullah said, there can be no talks between New Delhi and Islamabad till the neighbouring country stops killings in Jammu and Kashmir. “I do not know what action India should take, that is the domain of the Central Government. It is a problem for us and we have been going through it for years now. I have been seeing it for 30 years now. I have told them many times to stop it but their thinking is like that only. “How can there be talks? You kill our innocent people and then you call for talks. First stop the killings,” the former Chief Minister said while commenting on the terror attack at a construction site in Ganderbal district on Sunday. 

 

 

JUST two weeks ago, the house echoed with laughter as hundreds gathered for his daughter’s wedding. On Monday, cries of anger and anguish rang through Dr Shahnawaz’s Budgam residence and the streets around it, the celebration so quickly giving way to mourning. Slogans of ‘Naara-e-Takbeer, Allahu Akbar’ (Allah is the greatest) were heard as many thousands paid their last respects to the 52-year-old killed in a terror attack on Sunday in Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir. The doctor and six labourers were gunned down by terrorists at a tunnel-construction site on the Srinagar-Leh national highway. People arrived from Nayidgam in Soibugh area of Budgam and adjoining areas for Shahnawaz’s last rites.