A Kashmiri soldier of the Indian Army, who had come home on leave to perform last rites of his 18-year-old son, was shot dead by terrorists on Monday in the Kulgam district of South Kashmir.
Reports said that terrorists barged into the house of the soldier Mukhtar Ahmad Malik in the Shurat village and shot him dead at point blank. Security forces had neutralized five terrorists of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT) in Kulgam two days earlier.
Before joining Army, Mukhtar was reportedly a counter-insurgent and had helped security forces kill a couple of terrorists in mid-1990s when militancy suffered a major jolt.
The Kashmiri separatists and certain human rights organisations, who make lot of noises when Pakistan backed terrorists are killed by security forces, were tightlipped on the heartless killing of Mukhtar.
This is not the first such incident particularly in South Kashmir where a soldier Aurangzeb was abducted and mercilessly tortured before killing him in the Shopian district. Several other BSF, CRPF and J&K Police personnel on leave were killed by terrorists in their homes. A police constable was recently shot dead in Shopian where he had gone to purchase medicine for his ailing mother. The South Kashmir districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian have witnessed several incidents of killing of security personnel during their leave period.
Meanwhile, in another incident, a soldier of the Dharamshala based 18 Sikh Regiment in the wee hours around 2.15 am shot dead his two colleagues and thereafter killed himself with an INSAS rifle.
Sources in the Army said that the soldier identified as Jasvir Singh fired 10 rounds to kill his colleagues and himself.
The two other shot by him have been identified as Naik Harpal Singh and Havaldar Hardeep Singh.