NC block chief, SPO killed
SRINAGAR, May 31 — A ruling National Conference leader, a special police officer and eight militants, including two foreigners were among 11 persons killed in Jammu and Kashmir during the past 24 hours.

Major Pak intrusion plan foiled
JAMMU, May 31 — Indian troops have foiled a major Pakistani plan of intruding deep into Indian territory in the Nowshera area of Rajouri district by gunning down an unspecified number of intruders, most of them Pakistani soldiers.

BJP for air strikes in Poonch, Rajouri
JAMMU, May 31 — The BJP state chief, Mr Daya Krishan Kotwal, yesterday justified the Indian Army's response to flush out the armed infiltrators sent by Pakistan in Kargil and Dras sectors and urged Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to launch similar airstrikes in the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri and Doda district to smash the hideouts of militants and also to eliminate them.

Food poisoning claims 9 lives
UDHAMPUR, May 31 — At least nine persons died in Paly village in the Padder area of Doda district. According to police sources of Atholi police station seven persons died in past two days and two persons died today morning due to food poisoning and cholera.

NC block chief, SPO killed

SRINAGAR, May 31 (UNI) — A ruling National Conference leader, a special police officer (SPO) and eight militants, including two foreigners were among 11 persons killed in Jammu and Kashmir during the past 24 hours.

The slain militants including four hard core ones were responsible for the twin blasts on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway which claimed seven lives recently.

An official spokesman said unidentified militants shot dead a ruling National Conference block president Abdul Aziz Bhat near his Pinglana house in Pulwama district of south Kashmir around 10.55 am today.

He said militants shot dead a special police officer (SPO) Nazir Ahmad Sofi at Bandipora last evening.

He said militants entered the house of SPO Nazir Ahmad Chopan at village Vilgam in the frontier district of Kupwara and fired upon the inmates with automatic weapons . The father and brother of the SPO were injured in the firing.

He said security forces killed three militants including two foreigners at Sadiwar Kulgam in south Kashmir district of Anantnag last evening during a search operation. Two AK rifles, seven magazines and 58 rounds were recovered from the slain militants.

He said forces also gunned down a militant at Lodoona village while a body was recovered in central Kashmir district of Badgam last evening.

He said forces recovered 40 kg of RDX, 21 grenades, six boosters 13 electronic detonators fuses and one sealed box of detonators in the frontier district of Kupwara during a search operation last evening.

He said this group of militants was responsible for the twin blasts on May 28 and May 30 in which seven persons including three ITBP jawans and son and daughter of an Army officer were killed and 18 others injured.

Troops recovered four AK 47 rifles and one prefabricated IED from the slain militants. The two militants have been identified so far as Nissar Ahmad Wani alias Paplu and Ghulam Rasool Khan. The identity of the other two is being established.

He said with the killing of the Hizbul Mujahideen and IED expert sent shock waves to the militant stronghold belt of the Banihal area.

Meanwhile additional and more specialised troops and sniffer dogs with capability of detecting explosives have been rushed to Banihal for sanitising the area to ensure uninterrupted movement of convoys of security forces on the national highway.

JAMMU (PTI): The prime accused of two landmine explosions on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway was among four militants killed in a gunbattle with Army in the Gagar Mundu area in Doda district of Jammu region today, a Defence spokesman said here.

On specific information about the presence of militants in the Gagar Mandu area of Doda, the troops launched a cordon and search operation in the hilly area. The troops retaliated after they came under the heavy fire from the militants. The exchange of fire continued for more than two hours, he said.

Four militants belonging to Paplu group of pro-Pakistani outfit of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) were killed on spot.

The Paplu group was responsible for engineering two IEDs on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway at Nowgam in which seven army men and their families were killed and over 20 were injured, he added.

Nasar Paplu was planting IEDs to cause deaths of the Army men in the convoy in order to disrupt the induction of troops towards the Kargil sector, where Indian Army was engaged in flushing out infiltrators from Dras and Kargil sectors of Ladakh, the spokesman said.

Major Pak intrusion plan foiled
From M.L. Kak
Tribune News Service

JAMMU, May 31 — Indian troops have foiled a major Pakistani plan of intruding deep into Indian territory in the Nowshera area of Rajouri district by gunning down an unspecified number of intruders, most of them Pakistani soldiers.

Reports available here said the past four days Pakistani troops had been pounding several border villages and posts in Nowshera with mortar shells with a view to capturing some Indian posts and hamlets. Indian border guards, after realising the gravity of the situation, resorted to heavy mortar fire demolishing more than 25 Pakistani bunkers and army huts.

Unofficial reports said more than 30 Pakistani soldiers were killed. The Pakistan Government-controlled electronic media has confirmed the death of 12 persons in the Indian retaliatory fire.

Reports said the Pakistani troops had been consolidating their positions in forward areas across Nowshera during the past fortnight. Additional Pakistani troops had been deployed across the Nowshera area with the sole purpose of "catching Indian soldiers napping, as they did in Kargil." Under the plan, intrusion into Nowshera could have posed a serious threat to not only Rajouri but also Poonch district.

The Indian soldiers worked according to a plan. For first two days they observed restraint and retaliated only after they found that the Pakistani troops were trying to advance into Indian territory. "We have given a befitting reply to them (Pakistani troops)," said a senior Army officer.

The police said during the past three weeks Pakistani troops had been on a "probe" mission all along the border with India. During this period these troops resorted to heavy artillery fire in the Uri, Keran, Gurez and Tangdhar areas of the valley and mortar fire in the Poonch, Rajouri and Akhnoor sectors in the Jammu region. The aim was to test the strength and alertness of the Indian forces and make an attempt to carve out infiltration routes for foreign mercenaries.

As a result of intermittent but heavy firing, people in large border areas in Rajouri an Akhnoor have been shifted in relatively safer areas. More than 60 families have shifted from the Manika border and Kalai in Rajouri to safer places.

A large number of civilians, including women and children, have abandoned their villages in Khor, Panjdoot, Chaprial, Paltan, Sumbh and Malandi Khooi and have been camping in Bambial in the Akhnoor sector. Reports said during the day villagers do farm work but spend the night in Rambial to escape the firing by the Pakistani troops.

Night patrolling has been intensified not only in the border villages of Poonch, Rajouri and Akhnoon but also on this side of the international border (IB). The government has reports that Pakistani agencies are busy in a heavy military build-up on the other side of the IB where the Pakistani Rangers are being assisted by soldiers.

Since the entire IB, right from Akhnoor to Kathua, is not as difficult a border as in Poonch and Rajouri where ravines and mountains make anti-infiltration operations difficult, Pakistani agencies plan to push into the Jammu sector groups of militants from across R.S. Pura, Samba and Akhnoor. Right from the day the armed conflict between the Indian and Pakistani troops assumed servere dimensions in the Kargil-Dras belt, the BSF has established additional posts on this side of the IB to check infiltration and arms smuggling.

Hizbul men have "chemical weapons"

SRINAGAR, May 31 (PTI) — The pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen has claimed that militants fighting in Kargil and Dras possess chemical weapons and napalm bomb-like devices.

"If Indian troops use napalm bomb against militants in Dras and Kargil they (militants) will use similar deadly and chemical weapons’’, a statement published in today’s dailies here said.

The statement also claimed that militants had captured 17 posts spread over an area of 150 square kilometres from Kargil to Dras at the height of 18,000 feet.

BJP for air strikes in Poonch, Rajouri
From Our Correspondent

JAMMU, May 31 — The BJP state chief, Mr Daya Krishan Kotwal, yesterday justified the Indian Army's response to flush out the armed infiltrators sent by Pakistan in Kargil and Dras sectors and urged Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to launch similar airstrikes in the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri and Doda district to smash the hideouts of militants and also to eliminate them.

Addressing a Press conference here yesterday morning, the BJP President said as a significant number of foreign mercenaries were perched on the heights of Peer Panjal, there was also a great need for launching such an operation in Peer Panjal to clear the entire area of these militants.

Mr Kotwal said Pakistan had been fighting a proxy war in the state for a decade now and was pushing mercenaries into the state.

"Pakistan will have to pay for the misadventure it has undertaken by downing our fighter planes and also killing a Squadron Leader", said he adding that every time Pakistan had tried to commit aggression, it had got a befitting reply.

The BJP President said the people of Jammu and Kashmir would fight these mercenaries tooth and nail and would not allow them to grab even an inch of their land.

Dr Nirmal Singh, party spokesman, came down heavily on Pakistan for its so-called sympathy towards the Muslims of the state. He said had they been true sympathisers of J&K Muslims, they would not have forced the Shia population of Kargil town to flee their houses for safety due to heavy shelling on the town itself.

Food poisoning claims 9 lives
From Our Correspondent

UDHAMPUR, May 31 — At least nine persons died in Paly village in the Padder area of Doda district. According to police sources of Atholi police station seven persons died in past two days and two persons died today morning due to food poisoning and cholera.

Paly village is far away villages which have no link with road. A medical team has been sent into the village, to shift the ill.