Militant creating hurdles for upcoming J-K polls: Jaiswal

Samba (Jammu and Kashmir), May 12 : Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Sri Prakash Jaiswal on Monday said that the present militant incidents in Jammu and Kashmir are attempts to create hurdles for the upcoming elections in the state.

"We believe that the number of incidents have come down drastically in comparison to earlier times. However, no one should think that these incidents would cease to exist. But, yes the possibility of decrease in such cases has increased manifolds. Such incidents will further come down after the Assembly elections," said Jaiswal.

"Therefore, one should look at these incidents from the electoral perspective, as these people will try to affect such incidents. For such happenings our security forces are on alert but there is a need on the part of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to be alert," added Jaiswal.

In a fresh encounter today security forces killed one militant in Samba cantonment, about 45 kilometres from Jammu.

A senior army officer said that that the militants fired at the outer sentry post of the cantonment in Samba.

"At around 10 at night, beside our family quarters, our sentries there saw some movement near the wall to which they challenged and got a fire shot in retaliation. After the shot our men also exchanged the fire and fixed him (militant) at the spot," said Rakesh Chibber, Brigadear 168, of Samba Brigade.

The security forces also seized huge cache of ammunition including an UBL and an AK-47 rifle, ten rounds of UBL, 240 rounds of AK-47, six magazines and six hand grenades.

Reports added that the army has cordoned off the area and is conducting searches to find whether the killed militant had any accomplices with him.

The incident came a day after a fierce gun battle in Samba town on Sunday in which security forces killed two militants who earlier had gunned down five persons including two army personnel and three civilians and a photo-journalist.

About two-dozen separatist and militant groups are operative in Jammu and Kashmir, most of them demanding state's merger with Pakistan.

Over 45,000 people have been killed in militancy related violence since it broke out in 1989. Human rights groups put the toll at around 60,000 dead or missing.

ANI