By IANS
Srinagar : Two militants killed a special police officer (SPO) by slitting his throat while five separatists were killed in different incidents in Jammu and Kashmir Monday.
The police said militants travelling in a Tata Sumo vehicle full of passengers, knifed the throat of Muhammad Ashraf Khan, an SPO with the Zachaldara camp of the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Jammu and Kashmir police.
The incident tool place at Zachaldara, near the north Kashmir town of Handwara, 75 km from here late Monday afternoon.
“Khan died on the spot. The two militants jumped off the vehicle, but another SPO, identified as Abdul Majeed Khan, fired at and killed one of them,” a senior police officer here said.
This is the first such incident in Kashmir in nearly 20 years, in which militants killed an SPO in such a manner.
Meanwhile, the bodies of two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants were recovered by police from the debris of a house at Mundgam village of Kupwara district in north Kashmir Monday afternoon.
Security forces Sunday surrounded a house in the Mundgam, 70 km from here, on specific information about the presence of a group of LeT militants.
While one of them was killed Sunday, two others died in the fierce exchange of fire Monday.
“The firing has stopped. We are still searching the area,” the officer said.
Elsewhere in Kashmir, two more separatists were gunned down in a gunfight.
Troops of 44 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and the SOG laid a siege around Aliyalpora village, 80 km from here in south Kashmir’s Shopian district, the police said.
“As the troops were busy in searches, militants hiding in a house opened fire at the joint search parties of the 44 RR and the SOG, resulting in a fierce gunfight,” a senior police officer said here.
“Two militants have been killed,” the officer said.