Soldier succumbs to injury in Jammu and Kashmir:
An Army soldier injured in the July 30 encounter at Furqiyangali in Kupwara sector succumbed to injury on July 31 raising the death toll to three, reports Daily Excelsior. The Army, meanwhile, said that the operation against the infiltrating militants is still going on. As reported earlier, two Army personnel were killed and another was injured as they foiled an infiltration bid on the Line of Control (LoC) in Furqiyangali.
Meanwhile, a Bakerwal youth dodged two Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants, reportedly belonging to Pakistan’s Punjab Province, before reaching a safe location from where he was rescued by a Police party in the Banihal area of Ramban District on July 30. He also managed to snatch AK-47 rifle of one of them. While he was grazing cattle in the forests, the two militants, who were reportedly new in the area, abducted him on the evening of July 20 and asked him to show them safe routes leading to Pir Panjal range.
Separately, Awantipora Police on July 30 arrested one Aijaz Ahmad Shah of Tral Payeen in Pulwama District. "Shah was imposing himself as Hizb-ul-Mujahideen [HM] militant and extorting money from general public,” Police said.
Further, on July 31, tension gripped Sopore town of Baramulla District after a youth, Nazim Rashid alias Anjum, allegedly died in Police custody. He was picked up on July 30 in connection with the murder of a businessman Mohammed Ashraf on July 28.
Meanwhile, giving 'clean chit' to chief Interlocutor on Jammu and Kashmir Dileep Padgaonkar, an unnamed senior Home Ministry official said the ministry had minutely examined the content of the recorded speech delivered by him at the seminar organized by Kashmiri American Council leader Gulam Nabi Fai and found nothing that could even remotely point at something that can be interpreted as 'anti-India', reports Times of India. "Padgaonkar spoke there as a journalist, and there is nothing wrong in it," he said.