Kashmir Ruling Party Lawmaker Killed in Attack

20/12/2002| IslamWeb

Kashmiri nationalist fighters shot a newly elected lawmaker in Indian Kashmir on Friday and he died of his injuries in hospital, police and medical officials said. Gunmen opened fire as Abdul Aziz Mir, of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), was leaving a mosque in Pampore, roughly 10 miles south of Srinagar, the region's main city, after Friday prayers, police said.

The PDP leads a coalition government in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir where at least 35,000 people have been killed in a revolt that has run 13 years. No nationalist group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

"Abdul Aziz Mir has succumbed to his injuries in hospital," the chief medical officer of Srinagar Hospital told Reuters.

The attack came hours after suspected Muslim Kashmiri fighters killed three young women in their homes within days of the appearance of posters in the Himalayan state ordering women to wear a veil.

Two of the women, both aged 21, were shot dead in their home in Rajouri district in the south of the revolt-torn Muslim-majority state on Thursday night. The third woman, 22, was taken away and beheaded, an official said.

"There is a possibility these killings are linked with the diktat on dress code," he said.

Posters signed by a little-known group, Lashkar Jabbar, appeared in Rajouri town and neighboring villages asking women not to step out of their homes without a veil, the official said.

The Lashkar Jabbar sprayed acid on two women last year in Srinagar for defying its Islamic dress code.

More than a dozen guerrilla groups are fighting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir, which is at the heart of more than 50 years of hostility with Pakistan.

Shops and businesses in Srinagar were shut for a second straight day to protest against a death sentence handed down to three men convicted of an attack on the Indian parliament in December last year.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and sending Islamic Kashmiri nationalist fighters s across the border. Pakistan, an Islamic country, denies the charge and says it provides only moral and diplomatic support to what it calls a Kashmiri struggle for freedom.

PHOTO CAPTION

Indian policemen drag away an activist from Kashmir's main alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, during a protest rally in Srinagar on December 20, 2002. Half a dozen activists were detained by the Indian police after they protested against the death sentence handed down by an Indian court to three Kashmiri Muslims for treason on Wednesday, for their role in last year's attack on the Indian parliament. REUTERS/Altaf Hussain