SRINAGAR: 70-year-old jeweler from Punjab settled in Srinagar for four decades he was shot and killed by motorcycles terrorists in the city’s congested Sarai Bala town on Thursday, months after she obtained a residency certificate and bought a store and home.
Claiming responsibility for the murder of Satpal Nischal, whose roots are in Amritsar, the fledgling Pakistan-backed terror organization TRF said that the new domicile law was “unacceptable” and that all Kashmiris, except indigenous people, they would be treated as “occupiers” if they acquired property in J&K. “More to come,” TRF said in a statement distributed through Facebook.
A little-known group calling itself the J&K United Liberation Front praised TRF, an amalgamation of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen, for going tough with “occupants and puppets”.
Nischal, the first holder of a residence certificate to be targeted by terrorists since the new law came into effect, was the owner of Nischal Jewelers in Srinagar. Police said he was shot three times in the chest and pronounced dead upon arrival at SMHS hospital.
As soon as he obtained his residence certificate earlier this year, Nischal bought a store in Hanuman Mandir in the heart of Srinagar and a house in Indira Nagar, near the army headquarters in Badami Bagh. “His shop in Saria Bala is very popular with future brides because of its reasonable rates,” said a friend of the family.
Nischal is survived by two sons and a daughter.
Meanwhile, a CRPF The deputy inspector was injured when suspected terrorists threw a grenade and then fired at a patrol in the Sangam area of Anantnag district in southern Kashmir.
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