6 policemen martyred in J&K's Anantnag

Six policemen died as terrorists attacked a police contingent in south Kashmir's Anantnag. Among the policemen was a Station House Officer. Police say the vehicle in which the officer and his men were travelling was ambushed by a heavily armed group of terrorists at Achabal.

After killing all the policemen in the vehicle, the attackers made off with their weapons.

The Station House Officer was identified as Sub-Inspector Feroz Ahmad Dar, a resident of Pulwama.

Police say the attack could be a retaliation to an encounter that took place earlier on Friday at Anantnag's Arwani, where a Lashkar-e Taiba terrorist, Junaid Mattoo, was trapped in a building and is believed to have been killed. Mattoo is involved in several attacks on security forces in south Kashmir. His body has not be recovered so far and a search operation is underway.

Two civilians, one of them a teenager, died and several others were injured when the locals gathered at the encounter site. Police said crowd threw stones and tried to break the security cordon in an attempt to help militants flee.

After the incident, clashes broke out between protesters and security forces at nearly a dozen places in the Valley, including downtown Srinagar, Tral, Pampore, Pulwama town and Anantnag in south Kashmir, Hajin in Bandipora and Sopore in Baramulla in north Kashmir.

On Thursday, a policeman, identified as Shabir Ahmad Dar, was shot near his house in Boguld village. He was taken to the district hospital, where he died, a police officer said. One more policeman was killed and another injured when an area domination party of police was attacked at Hyderpora in Srinagar airport road on Thursday evening.