How stone pelters got wind of the Tral encounter in J&K

In yet another case, stone-pelters disrupted an ongoing encounter in Tral in Jammu and Kashmir

There has been little or no effect to the warning handed out by the Indian Army chief against stone pelters in Kashmir. The bloody Tral encounter at Jammu and Kashmir which began on Saturday and ended the next day was disrupted several times by locals who pelted stones at security personnel who finally ended up killing a local and a Pakistani militant.

A top commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Aqib Maulvi and a Pakistani militant were killed in the encounter. One policeman, Manzoor Ahmed was martyred in the encounter. Ahmed had opted to be part of the operation and had taken the militants head on.
The security forces had to face disruptions several times during the encounter thanks to locals landing up at the spot and pelting stones. One of the locals even snatched away the rifle of a security personnel and disappeared. A separate operation had to be launched to recover the rifle.

The locals were alerted about the encounter thanks to a call made by Maulvi to his mother. He told his mother that he was holed up in a house in the Hafoo area which was surrounded by security personnel. He is said to have told his mother that he would not surrender and would fight instead. Sources say that his family members may have tipped off the locals who then gathered at the encounter site in large numbers and attempted to disrupt the encounter.

The laws and the requests appear to have had little or no effect on the stone pelters. The government had declared the three kilometre area around an encounter site as a no-go-zone. However, this has had no effect and Saturday's encounter is a classic example of the same.

OneIndia News