Srinagar / Terrorists kill truck driver in J&K's Anantnag, fourth such attack in 2 weeks

SRINAGAR: A truck driver loading apples into his vehicle was killed by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag on Monday, police said. This is the fourth attack on truckers transporting apples from the Kashmir region in the last two weeks.

According to news agency PTI, terrorists fired at the civilian -- identified as Narayan Dutt from Udhampur district's Katra -- in Bijbehara area. A cordon-and-search operation has been launched to catch the terrorists, it quoted security personnel as saying.

The incident occurred hours after 15 people were injured in a grenade attack by terrorists at Sopore in Baramulla district.

Incidentally, both the attacks took place a day before 27 members of the European Union parliament are expected to visit Jammu and Kashmir. They had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval earlier on Monday.

In the earlier attack, terrorists had thrown a grenade at civilians waiting at a bus stand in Sopore. One of them had to be taken to a Srinagar hospital in a critical state, news agency PTI quoted police as saying. Nobody was arrested in that incident.

Last week, two truck drivers were killed and their vehicles loaded with apples were set on fire by terrorists in south Kashmir's Shopian district. Another driver was injured in the incident.

Police said the trucks were passing through Chitragam village without providing prior information when the terrorists opened fire, critically injuring two of their drivers. They later set the fruit-laden trucks ablaze.

On October 14, even as the Jammu and Kashmir administration lifted a 72-day clampdown on telecommunications after the scrapping of its special status, terrorists had shot dead a Rajasthani truck driver and assaulted a local orchard owner in Shopian.

Two days later, a Punjab-based apple trader was killed in a terror attack in the same region.