Date:22/12/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/12/22/stories/2002122204150100.htm

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Four of family shot dead near Sopore

By Our Special Correspondent

Body of four-year-old Zubair Ahmad Dar who was shot dead by gunmen at Rebbon village, north of Kashmir, on Friday night. — Photo: Nissar Ahmad

JAMMU DEC. 21. Four members of a family were killed and three women injured when militants attacked their house in Rebbon village, near Sopore on Friday, while one more woman was killed in Rajouri, where three young girls had been beheaded on Friday.

Police said a group of heavily-armed gunmen barged into the house of Ghulam Qadir Dar at around 10.30 p.m. on Friday and were looking for his son, Mushtaq.

The inmates tried to shield him from the militants, but they opened fire indiscriminately killing Dar, Mushtaq, four-year-old Zubair Ahmed and Dar's brother, Mohammed Yusuf. Three women, Tasleema, Saira and Rubina, who were seriously injured, were rushed to a Srinagar hospital. The motive of the killings is yet to be ascertained and a case has been registered.

The Additional Superintendent of Police, Sopore, Ghulam Sarwar Chouhan, said the militants were five in number.

Sources alleged that Mushtaq was forced by the troops of the Rashtriya Rifles to plant a mine during an encounter and from that day the militants were after him. No outfit has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Meanwhile a 60-year-old woman, Hajra Bi, was shot dead in Chowdary Naar area of Rajouri district last night.

The Senior Superintendent of Police, Prithvi Raj Manhas, said the militant appeared in her house when she was sleeping and shot her in the head in the presence of her two sons and a daughter. He denied the reports that a "purdah campaign" launched by militants had anything to do with the killing of three young girls in the district.