3 CRPF troopers killed in Kashmir shootout

Three federal police are dead and another was injured following a shooting at a barracks in insurgency-hit Kashmir, an official said on Sunday.The fatal incident happened late on Saturday evening inside the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in the Himalayan town of Kulgam, about 90-minutes drive from Srinagar. “We have three CRPF personnel dead and one injured,” a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak with the media.Other personnel inside the barracks at the time of the shooting were detained for questioning, he added. It was not immediately clear if there was one or more shooters responsible for the deaths.Around 100 Indian security force personnel commit suicide every year in Kashmir and the insurgency-racked northeastern states, according to official figures.There have also been a raft of incidents involving soldiers shooting their comrades and officers, known as fragging, which have been blamed on stress. Soldiers battling a 20-year-old insurgency in Kashmir are now being provided a 24-hour helpline and meditation classes to overcome stress, although fragging incidents in the region have dropped as the insurgency slowed.More than two decades of violence in Kashmir has left more than 47,000 people dead by official count.Terrorists shot dead a ruling National Conference (NC) worker in Srinagar on Saturday.The killing comes two weeks after a cop was killed and three others injured in an attack on rural development Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar’s house in Srinagar’s Nawab Bazaar area. The minister survived the assassination bid.Police said Bashir Ahmad Bhat, a shopkeeper, was shot in his head while he was on his way back home in Srinagar’s Batamaloo area. Bhat died on his way to Srinagar’s SMHS hospital. The activist’s assailants fled the scene.Terrorists had also killed Bhat’s father, Muhammad Jamal Bhat, a NC office bearer, in the same area in 1996.Political activists have been routinely targeted since insurgency broke out in 1989. The National Conference has lost the maximum number of activists during this period.