BBC News – India anger over Sarabjit Singh attack in Pakistan jail

Saturday, 27 April 2013. here have been protests in India after an attack in a Pakistani prison left convicted Indian spy Sarabjit Singh in a coma.

Singh, a high-profile prisoner on death row for more than 21 years, was attacked by inmates armed with bricks in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail on Friday.

Singh is in intensive care with severe head injuries. Two inmates have been charged and two officials suspended.

Indian PM Manmohan Singh described the attack as “very sad”.

Former foreign minister SM Krishna said a strong protest should be lodged with Pakistan.

He said such conduct should not happen “in a civilised world”.

Protests erupted in the city of Jammu, in Indian-administered Kashmir.

One protester, Chetan Sharma, told Reuters: “This was a conspiracy to kill Sarabjit Singh in which they have meted out inhuman treatment to him. This was well planned by Pakistan.”

‘All alone’

A doctor at Lahore’s Jinnah hospital told Agence France-Presse news agency: “Singh’s condition is critical with multiple wounds on his head, abdomen, jaws and other body parts, and he has been put on ventilator.”

India’s government informed Sarabjit Singh’s family that Pakistan had granted visas for four family members to visit.

His sister, Dalbir Kaur, told AFP: “We want to be with Sarabjit in this difficult time. He is all alone.”

Sarabjit Singh was reportedly attacked as he and other prisoners were brought out of their cells for a one-hour break.

Two prisoners have been charged with attempted murder.

The BBC’s Jill McGivering says that over the years the Singh case has been raised at the highest political levels and his fate has often seemed caught up with the broader relationship between India and Pakistan.

Sarabjit Singh was convicted of spying for India and involvement in a series of bomb blasts in 1990 in which 14 people died.

His family say he is innocent and merely strayed across the border in Punjab by accident.

Tensions have increased in the past six months with the execution in India of Kashmiri Afzul Guru over the attack on India’s parliament 11 years ago and of Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving attacker from the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Sarabjit Singh’s lawyer Owais Sheikh told AFP his client had received threats after Guru’s execution.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-22322992

BBC News – India foreign minister Salman Khurshid to visit China

Thursday, 25 April 2013. India’s Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid has said he will visit China in May amid tensions near the de facto border in the Himalayas.

Mr Khurshid’s trip comes ahead of a scheduled visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to India.

It comes at a time when India has asked China to withdraw troops it says have moved into a territory near the border.

China denies violating Indian territory. The two sides are holding talks to resolve the row.

“I believe we have a mutual interest and we should not destroy years of contribution we have put together,” Mr Khurshid was quoted by AFP news agency as telling reporters on the sidelines of a business event.

“I think it is a good thing that we are having a dialogue.”

Mr Khurshid said he would be visiting China on 9 May, ahead of Mr Li’s visit on 20 May for his first overseas trip, reports say.

India says Chinese troops erected a camp on its side of the ill-defined frontier in Ladakh region last week.

China has dismissed reports of the incursion as media speculation.

The two countries dispute several Himalayan border areas and fought a brief war in 1962. Tensions flare up from time to time.

They have held numerous rounds of border talks, but all have been unsuccessful so far.

The BBC’s Soutik Biswas in Delhi says there has not been a fatality in skirmishes along the undefined India-China boundary since 1967, but the memories of the crushing defeat inflicted by the Chinese on India in the 1962 war have not faded from the minds of some Indians.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-22289966

The Tribune – Now, China’s copters violate Indian airspace in Ladakh; Drop food, cigarette packets, notes India plans more permanent posts along LAC

Ajay Banerjee & Ashok Tuteja, Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 24. Close on the heels of Chinese troops entering the Indian territory in northern Ladakh and refusing to budge from their current position, two Chinese military helicopters have violated Indian airspace at Chumar in southeastern Ladakh, adding to the prevailing tension between the two countries.

With China virtually rejecting India’s demand that status quo be restored along the border, India is planning to set up more permanent posts closer to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and has pressed in additional unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to maintain an eye on Chinese movements.

Two Chinese military copters entered the Indian airspace in the Chumar sector on April 21, top sources confirmed. The incident occurred on April 21 and in the middle of the ongoing stalemate near Daulat Beg Oldie in northern Ladakh, where Chinese soldiers pitched a tent on April 15. The Indian side had responded on April 18 by rushing in its troops.

The helicopters hovered over the area for quite some time and returned only after dropping some food cans, cigarette packets and hand-written notes, sources said. Brigadier B M Gupta had raised the matter with his Chinese counterpart senior Colonel Ayan Yanti at the flag meeting held yesterday.

Last September, Chinese helicopters flew over Chumar with some of its troops even getting onto the ground. The troops destroyed bunkers and old tents of the Indian Army before returning to their own airspace. Chumar is around 300 km southeast of Leh and lies close to India’s high-altitude astronomical observatory at Hanle.

Large swathes of the LAC, which has no definite alignment, are patrolled by Indian troops on a regular basis. At least five sections of the LAC are disputed in eastern Ladakh. Permanent posts, however, are few and far away from each other. The latest incursion by Chinese in northern Ladakh means that India will have to take a proactive role to protect its interests, sources said.

Unlike, the Line of Control (LoC) on the western front with Pakistan, the existing rules of engagement along the LAC do not entail having a post after a fixed distance. There are very few posts where the troops of either side eyeball-to eyeball. The distance from the LAC is mandated under peace agreements by the two sides since 1993.

Sources said the developments in the past one week have forced New Delhi to review its strategy along the LAC. So far, the peace agreement and modalities on confidence-building measures (CBM’s) were working. Whenever soldiers of either side came face-to-face due to varying perception of the LAC alignment, they withdrew as mandated under the April 2005 agreement. But now the dynamics have changed.

The latest intrusion by Chinese troops has taken place at Raki Nallah, east of Daulat Beg Oldie – India’s advanced landing ground (ALG). The area is manned by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. However, Army troops were rushed in to counter the Chinese.

After two meetings proved unfruitful, a Commander-level flag meeting is likely to take place on April 26.

Official sources were, however, confident that the issue would be settled through negotiations between the two sides. On being asked about the fate of upcoming bilateral visit of Chinese Premier to India in the wake of the latest border row, Indian officials said as of now the scheduled visit of new Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was on.

Li would visit India in the third week of May. The two sides were working on his programme in India.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, meanwhile, said the two countries were in touch to settle the matter while emphasising that New Delhi and Beijing had differing perception of the LAC. China yet again asserted it had not violated the LAC, virtually rejecting India’s demand that status quo be restored along the border. “I want to reiterate that Chinese troops have been acting in strict compliance with the bilateral agreements and conducting normal patrol on their side of the LAC. They have never crossed the line,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in Beijing.

India, on its part, has sent its Army delegation to Beijing to finalise the dates of bilateral military exercise expected to be held later this year. The delegation has been sent to avoid any escalation in the situation. A Brigadier from the Military Operations is heading it and will finalise the date for the third edition of the hand-to-hand exercise between the two sides after a gap of four years. The exercise is expected to be held in September-October this year, said Indian officials.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130425/main1.htm

The Hindu – Civil rights groups worried over executions in India

By rejecting Bhullar’s plea the apex court has lost a “wonderful chance” to bring back peace and sanity on execution, Human Rights Law Network founder and senior Supreme Court lawyer Colin Gonsalves said.

Sandeep Joshi

New Delhi, 15 April 2013.  India was among the three countries that resumed executions in 2012 after many years of having none, according to Amnesty International’s latest report “Death Sentences and Executions 2012.” And now with the Supreme Court rejecting Khalistani terrorist Devinderpal Singh

Bhullar’s plea for commutation of the death sentence, civil rights groups fear the country could see more executions this year.

Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru was hanged and the secrecy with which the execution was carried out in Delhi’s Tihar Jail without informing even his family about it triggered a controversy. The hanging came within six months of execution of Mumbai attack case convict Ajmal Kasab. There has been a lull in executions in India as the last person to go to the gallows was Dhananjoy Chatterjee in Kolkata in 2004.

But now Bhullar could be the first to go to the gallows while 18 other death-row convicts, whose mercy pleas have been rejected by the President, could follow suit. Of these 18 convicts, at least 11 are those whose death sentences were confirmed by the Supreme Court a decade ago.

However, with voices supporting the death sentence growing in India, human rights groups fear executions could rise. Another worrying factor is the growing number of death sentences being awarded every year. And now with more stringent anti-rape laws coming into force, the number could go up.

“During 2001-2011, lower courts granted the death sentence to at least 5,776 convicts … of these, death sentences of 4,321 convicts were commuted to life sentence. If India were to execute these death-row convicts per year, it would become one of the top executioners in the world. India’s return to dark ages where justice is described as synonymous of hanging will be too expensive for society,” says Asian Centre for Human Rights Director Suhas Chakma.

By rejecting Bhullar’s plea the apex court has lost a “wonderful chance” to bring back peace and sanity on execution, Human Rights Law Network founder and senior Supreme Court lawyer Colin Gonsalves said.

“They would now plead before the three-judge bench in the Supreme Court to hear the case of death-row convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case … we will try and convince them to grant mercy.”

Mr. Gonsalves said hanging in India would lead to severe social and political consequences. “The execution of Afzal Guru has created a lot of unrest in the Kashmir Valley … Hanging Bhullar will have a similar effect in Punjab. Keeping a death-row convict in prison for the rest of his life is enough instead of hanging him,” he asserted.

Stating that the death sentences were also creating political problems, Mr. Chakma said: “Executions only create alienation in society … the moment you hang someone, it would lead to certain sections trying to either fan passions or take political mileage out of it.”

Noting that the death sentence as a punishment had not worked as a deterrent as every day society was facing more and more ghastly crimes, Mr. Chakma said: “In such a scenario, rarest of rare is no longer remains rare … death penalty becomes a rule. India should join increasing members of the United Nations which are abolishing the death penalty and put a moratorium on the death penalty with the aim to ultimately abolish it.”

According to Amnesty International: “Only 21 of the world’s countries were recorded as having carried out executions in 2012 — the same number as in 2011, but down from 28 countries a decade earlier in 2003. ”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/civil-rights-groups-worried-over-executions-in-india/article4617642.ece

The Hindustan Times – Kashmir jihadis in Pakistan, says Imran Khan

Islamabad, 15 April 2013. Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s party has acknowledged “Kashmiri jihadi forces” active in Pakistan as one of key factors driving “terror and lawlessness” within the country.

The ‘Naya Pakistan Plan’, a document posted on the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf’s special website created for the May 11 polls, lists six factors in its section on internal security that “drive terror and lawlessness in varying degrees”.Pakistan

These factors are “Taliban resistance movement in Afghanistan; Pakistani Taliban trying to enforce their interpretation of Shariah; Kashmiri jihadi forces working from within Pakistan; sectarian violence, particularly Shia-Sunni killings; ethnic terrorism and violence, for example in Karachi; real and perceived disenfranchisement of Balochistan”.

Though anti-India groups like the banned Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and Al-Badr Mujahideen openly operate from bases and camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Pakistani political parties have for long been reluctant to acknowledge that such organisations have a presence in the country.

Most political parties usually state in their election manifestos that they will support the Kashmiri people in their movement for the right to self-determination.

They also toe the Foreign Office’s stated position that Pakistan only extends “political, moral and diplomatic support” to the Kashmiri people.

The admission in the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf document is possibly the first time a Pakistani political party has acknowledged the presence of “Kashmiri jihadi forces” within the country.

Though the issue of internal security also figures in the party’s manifesto released by Imran Khan on April 9, there is no mention of the Kashmiri jihadis in that document.

Sources told PTI that a draft of the manifesto had contained material similar to that found in the “Naya Pakistan Plan” but it was dropped after some Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf leaders noticed it.

While the “Naya Pakistan Plan” document lists several steps that the party intends to take to improve the internal security situation if it comes to power, it does not state how the issue of Kashmiri jihadis will be tackled.

The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf states that if it forms the government after the May 11 general election, it will pull Pakistan out of the “US dictated war on terror” and help the US in its “exit strategy” for Afghanistan.

It further states it will hold a “stakeholders’ conference” on the lines of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to which representatives of “dissident groups” which shun violence will be invited.

The party also states that it will create a National Counter-terrorism Authority with representatives from the armed forces, Inter-Services Intelligence, Intelligence Bureau, Pakistan Rangers and police to tackle internal security issues.

Imran Khan has often been criticised by his detractors for being soft on the Taliban and other militant groups.

However, he was the only major politician to criticise the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi after a string of deadly attacks on the minority Shia community.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Pakistan/Kashmir-jihadis-in-Pakistan-says-Imran-Khan/Article1-1044428.aspx

The Tribune – Visa on arrival for Pakistan senior citizens

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 5. Indicating a small yet significant shift, India has started visa on arrival facility for senior citizens of Pakistan.

The facility, originally supposed to start on January 15 this year as part of the new liberalised visa regime between the two neighbours, was put on hold after two Indian soldiers were beheaded along the Line of Control (LoC) on January 6. Pakistan had, however allowed Indian senior citizens to utilise the facility in January.

A senior Home Ministry official said: “We have launched visa on arrival facility for Pakistan senior citizens at the Attari-Wagah Integrated Check Post from April 1.” No decision has been taken to allow group tourist visa facility to Pakistan nationals. The scheme was to start from March 15 but was put on hold by India citing “technical issues”.

After two Indian soldiers were beheaded along the LoC, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said the incident had cast a shadow on bilateral relations and asked Pakistan to create conducive environment to take the normalisation process forward.

He had said he was yet to see any “tangible progress” in dismantling of terror infrastructure in Pakistan and bringing to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks. The new visa agreement was signed last September.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130406/main3.htm

The Tribune – Srinagar Fidayeen attack; Home Minister Sushilkumar ShindeKilling : Pakistan numbers in slain terrorists’ diaries

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14. Under attack from the Opposition over the killing of five CRPF personnel in a suicide attack in Srinagar’s Bemina area yesterday, the government today said in Parliament that the two terrorists involved in the strike were of foreign origin.

Avoiding direct references to Pakistan, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said in a statement in both Houses that the diaries recovered from the slain terrorists bore suspected Pakistani numbers and the skin ointment found in their kit had an Urdu name and was manufactured at 35, Dockyard, a Karachi-based facility of GSK Pakistan Limited. When pressed for clarifications in the Rajya Sabha, Shinde said, “I only said the terrorists were of foreign origin and not Pakistanis.”

After the BJP moved notices for adjournment of question hour in both Houses, Shinde said the terrorists were “fidayeens” as was evident from their “shaven” bodies. He, however, said the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen’s claim to be behind the attack was still under authentication. Shinde said six other CRPF personnel were injured in the encounter, one of them critically. Four civilians who were playing cricket in the ground also suffered injuries in the incident.

“Two unidentified armed terrorists in civilian clothes, carrying ammunition and grenades in hidden bags, entered the playground and mingled with local youth. They took out their gear, lobbed grenades and opened indiscriminate fire on the CRPF men. Armed CRPF officers retaliated,” said Shinde. Fifty CRPF personnel of the 73rd battalion had assembled in Police Public School grounds before their deployment at various places.

The BJP, however, slammed the government for going soft on Pakistan-sponsored terror and failing to prevent strikes. In the Lok Sabha, Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj questioned the hospitality Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid extended recently to the Pakistan PM at Ajmer Sharif. “You are treating them to lunch and four days later this attack happens. The head of Ajmer shrine did what you could not by boycotting the Pakistan PM for beheading our soldiers,” she said.

Shinde, however, insisted the UPA was “very vigilant and was keeping an eye on POK camps”.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130315/main3.htm

The Hindu – Five CRPF men killed in fidayeen attack in Srinagar

Two militants dead, authorities suspect Pakistan based outfits

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

Srinagar, 13 March 2013. In a fidayeen attack — occurring after three years — two militants and five CRPF personnel died and ten others sustained injuries on the National Highway Bypass in Bemina area of Srinagar on Wednesday. The officiating Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, Abdul Gani Mir said that two unidentified militants were gunned down after they attacked and killed the CRPF men on the playground of J&K Police Public School at Bemina around 10.45 a.m. He said six more paramilitary personnel and four civilians sustained injuries in the suicide attack, unprecedented in the State’s history of militancy in 23 years.

Mr. Mir, who is currently IGP Crime in J&K and had arrived in Srinagar minutes before the shootout, said that the Police school had been already closed for Wednesday due to the separatists-sponsored call for shutdown. “Had the school been open, the toll would have been higher”, he told The Hindu. He was not sure about the number of the militants who carried out the attack at the ‘F’ company headquarters of CRPF 73 battalion but said that none other than the two militants was found dead or alive during the following cordon-and-search operation in the locality.

“Both the militants at the playground were killed and we have seized two of their AK-56 rifles besides some hand grenades along with their bodies. The area is now cleared for traffic”, Mr. Mir said. According to him, two young men wearing sports outfits and each carrying a sports bag had appeared at the playground and engaged the CRPF men in a ‘friendly cricket match’. A number of youth from the nearby localities were watching and playing the game when the two strangers suddenly took out their automatic rifles and attacked the unarmed paramilitary personnel.

“They lobbed grenades and sprayed bullets, killing five CRPF men. Even after others at the camp took positions and the young players ran for life, both the militants kept on firing in all directions. They were soon gunned down”, Mr. Mir said. He said that the militants were unidentified but the police had seized certain documents and other evidence from their belongings that could lead to their identification.

In New Delhi, Home Secretary R.K. Singh said: “Prima facie, the terrorists appear to be from across the border and were Pakistani nationals”.

A caller who said his name was Baleeg-ud-din and claimed to be a Hizbul Mujahideen spokesman told a local news gathering agency that two militants of his organisation had carried out the attack. He reportedly warned that such attacks would continue in the future.

Senior officials, however, insisted that this could be an attempt to mislead the police and security forces as Hizbul Mujahideen in the past had publicly disapproved suicide attacks as “un-Islamic”. They said that only a few Pakistan-based jihadist outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad had carried out such strikes in J&K for over a decade of the prime of militancy before 2010. LeT, they said, was the first suspect. A suicide-type attack had left two employees of a hotel on the highway bypass dead in October 2012. The last of the 80 or so suicide strikes in the
State had occurred at a hotel at the business nerve centre of Lalchowk in Srinagar in January 2010. Two militants and some policemen and civilians had died in the two-day-long operation.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/five-crpf-men-killed-in-fidayeen-attack-in-srinagar/article4504066.ece

The Tribune – Statewide menace; Drugs: UN report had sounded alert, but police called it ‘false’

Jupinderjit Singh, Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 11. That Punjab is a major transit point for drugs to the US and Canada has been re-affirmed with the busting of yet another drug ring allegedly involving policemen and sportspersons.

Earlier too the Punjab Police, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the counter-intelligence wing of the state police along with the Delhi police collectively busted several groups involved in the racket. However, investigations in most cases reached a dead end.

A drug carrier or his leader usually do not know about the kingpin. Hence, their arrest provides no leads and the investigation hits a dead end.

Informed sources said that peddlers in the past have used religious leaders and books for smuggling drugs to western countries from Punjab. The World Drug Report 2006 was the first to mention Punjab as the transit point for narcotics, stating that heroin and opium from Afghanistan and Pakistan reached Punjab via its borders with Pakistan or from Jammu and Kashmir. In Ludhiana, the drugs were not only stored but also purified to make drugs like Ecstasy, which is used in rave parties.

Though the then state police chief dismissed the UN report as false, the Delhi police busted an international syndicate with the arrest of Toronto-based Gurdish Singh Toor alias Amarjeet Singh from Ludhiana.

An Intelligence report in 2000 had claimed that 200 policemen were hand in glove with drug smugglers. “There are policemen who drive swanky cars and own huge properties. A sustained operation can bust the police-smuggler nexus.”

In 2008, Head Constable Rachan Singh, a kabaddi player with 70 medals in national and international tournaments to his credit, was arrested for hobnobbing with smugglers. He had been specially deployed with the counter-intelligence unit of the state police to nab the smugglers. The policeman owned a Ford Endeavour, a Skoda Octavia and two Lancer cars. A Canadian NRI, Arvinder Singh, and two others were also caught with the policeman.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130312/punjab.htm#6

The Hindu – Revoke Armed Forces Special Powers Act, says Omar, after youth is shot dead in Baramulla

Army denies its troops killed him, says they fired in air in self defence

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

Jammu, 5 March 2013.  While a tense situation prevailed in the Baramulla district after a youth was shot dead allegedly by the Army, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah made a strong case for the revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 with his emotional speech in the Legislative Assembly and directed the police to book officers of the Rashtriya Rifles for murder.

The Deputy Commissioner of Baramulla, Ghulam Ahmad Khwaja, told The Hindu that the police have registered a murder case against the officers of Rashtriya Rifles 46th battalion, who had earlier on Tuesday evening opened fire on a group of youth, killing a 25-year-old Tahir Ahmad Sofi of Kakkar Hamam. Another civilian escaped with gunshot wounds.

The Army has however denied the allegation and said the troops fired in air in self defence “to extricate themselves” and claimed someone else shot dead Mr. Sofi “with a view to trigger large scale violence.”

Quoting official reports, Mr. Khwaja said two Army vehicles drove across the Jhelum river in downtown Baramulla at a time when a shutdown sponsored by the separatists was in place, but there was no reports of violence.

Quoting eyewitnesses, Mr. Khwaja said some youngsters pelted the Army vehicles with stones as a result of which the soldiers came down and chased them away. “I have reasons to believe that the firing was unprovoked and unwarranted. Unfortunately, one 25-year-old Tahir Ahmad Sofi died and another got injured. As there was no law and order problem and the Army’s action does not appear to be justified in any manner. The police have registered a murder case on my direction against the officers responsible foe the shoot-out,” Mr. Khwaja, who is also the District Magistrate, added.

Mr. Sofi is the second youth to have fallen to the Army’s bullets in the aftermath of Afzal Guru’s execution. Last month, two protesters drowned to death while fleeing from a clash with the security forces near Sumbal in north Kashmir. Mr. Sofi’s family said he had completed post-graduation in Social Welfare and the other day had got admission forms for the Master of Education course in Kashmir University.

Sources said that a crowd of over 4,000 residents carried Mr. Sofi’s body to the DC’s office-cum-residence while shouting pro-Azadi and anti-India slogans and demanded action against the Army. The DC pacified the angry crowds with the news of FIR against the Army and assured them law would take its course. Officials said that some restrictions were put in place, but a formal curfew would be imposed only in the morning on Wednesday. The plan to impose curfew was not due to Tuesday’s firing alone, they said, and added there were law and order concerns due to
the separatists call asking residents of Bandipore and Baramulla districts to march to Afzal’s Guru’s residence on Wednesday.

In the evening, sources said, people in about a dozen neighbourhoods in Baramulla down staged demonstrations and used the public address systems of the community mosques to express their anger and protest against the death of Mr. Sofi, whose funeral was performed late on Tuesday. .

Here in the Legislative Assembly, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party staged a massive protest and walkout, holding the Omar Abdullah government responsible for Mr. Sofi’s death and failure to prevent Guru’s execution.

An emotional Omar Abdullah admitted his responsibility as the head of the government, but pleaded that the civil government was faced with handicaps due to the AFSPA that gave extraordinary powers to the armed forces. He said the anguish and pain that he felt due to such deaths of young men were much more than any other politician or human being in the State.

For about a minute, he stood mute and speechless, but recovered soon. “This is why I am vehemently raising the issue of partial revocation of AFSPA so that the erring forces personnel do not go scot-free”, Mr Abdullah said. He argued it was unfair to hold him and his government responsible for everything from Guru’s hanging to Mr. Sofi’s death.

In self-defence: Army

An Army spokesperson said: “The Army patrol was soon outnumbered, some of them were injured. A person out of the mob assaulted the Army personnel with an iron rod creating a life-threatening situation.” He said the troops fired in air in self defence and welcomed an investigation by police.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/revoke-afspa-says-omar-after-youth-is-shot-dead-in-baramulla/article4478925.ece