A fire engulfed a municipal committee building in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian district on Monday, ANI reported. The blaze broke out at 8 pm, according to eyewitnesses.
Unidentified men set the building on fire, NDTV reported. The local administration has deployed several fire tenders to douse the flames.
The incident comes days after the controversial urban local body elections in the state in which the Congress won 157 seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party 100 seats, and independents 178. The National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party boycotted the polls over a lack of clarity on the Centre’s stand on a batch of petitions that have challenged Article 35A of the Constitution, which grants special rights and privileges to the state’s residents.
Earlier in the day, suspected militants attacked former Peoples Democratic Party MLA Abdul Razaq Wagay in Shopian’s Zawoora village with a grenade, Greater Kashmir reported. No injuries were reported.
These attacks came a day after suspected militants killed PDP worker Mohammed Amin Dar in Srinagar’s Gangbugh area. A police sub-inspector identified as 30-year-old Imtiyaz Ahmad Mir, who was reportedly kidnapped on Sunday afternoon when he was on his way home, was also found dead in Pulwama district on Monday.
On October 5, three days before the local body elections in the state, two National Conference workers – Nazir Ahmed Bhat and Mushtaq Ahmed Wani – were killed in Srinagar.
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