Srinagar: in a second killing of a police personnel on Sunday, militants attacked and decamped with service rifle of a cop posted at the residence of executive member of Hurriyat Conference (M) Fazal Haq Qureshi who survived an attack in 2009.
Official sources said the suspected militants attacked the police guard, Farooq Ahmad Yatoo of Chadoora in central Kashmir’s Budgam at the residence of the Hurriyat Conference (M) leader Fazal Haq Qureshi at Bilal Colony Soura in Srinagar here on Sunday afternoon.
He was shifted in critical condition to SKIMS Soura where he succumbed to injuries. Militants also decamped with the service rifle of the policeman. SSP Imtiyaz Ismail Parray confirmed the killing of the policeman and said that investigations have been taken up.
Unidentified assailants had attacked and injured Qureshi at his residence on 4 December 2009.
Qureshi was behind the first ever peace talks between a group of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen led by Abdul Majid Dar and the government of India government in 2000. While the talks failed to make any headway, he had also engaged in a dialogue with then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani again but pulled out of the second round in protest against human rights violations in the state.
Qureshi was the member of Plebiscite Front but later launched his own political party by the name of People’s Political Front and was elevated to the Executive Committee of the Hurriyat following split in 2003.
Earlier in the day, a policeman Tejinder Singh was killed in a similar attack on him while he was posted outside the famous shrine of Charar-e-Sharief.
