NC leader shot dead in Anantnag

Witnesses and relatives told The Indian Express that two militants carrying pistols surfaced near a lane close to Beigh’s residence and fired at Beigh when he was making purchases at a store. The leader and his guard were to return home after offering prayers at a mosque close by. Police sources said one of the two Beigh’s personal guards was not present at the time of the attack. Ahmad too was not carrying his service rifle when militants struck.

Police later recovered the two rifles provided to Beigh’s security officers, from a trunk in one of the rooms in the leader’s house. Beigh’s house in the Sarnal mountains, is guarded by a small CRPF contingent. Police apprehended that Beigh was killed by the same group that recently killed Mohammad Yousuf Bhat, a local Congress leader.

A senior police officer said one of the militants was a foreigner who could have executed the operation. He presumed that the group had monitored the movement of VIPs in the area for some time, before planning the assassination.

Beigh, an NC stalwart from the area, was elected to the J-K Assembly in 1996 from Anantnag constituency, after which he was sworn in as a minister of state for revenue in the Abdullah government. In the run-up to the 2002 Assembly elections, he fell out of favour with the NC and was denied a ticket. NC president Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah later visited Beigh’s home and offered their condolences to the bereaved family.