Srinagar, Apr 23: The moderate faction of the Hurriyat conference on Thursday took a U-turn on its decision not to call for a poll boycott in Jammu and Kashmir and asked the people to stay away from ongoing general elections.

Hurriyat chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said that election is no substitute to the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

“We will boycott the elections till Kashmir issue is resolved,” Farooq added.

On April 16, the Hurriyat conference had said that it would not use the word boycott in the ongoing parliamentary polls in the state.

New Delhi, Apr. 22: The Union Home Ministry on Wednesday termed the media reports stating large scale infiltration of armed militants in Gurez Sector of Jammu and Kashmir as “exaggerated,” while clarifying that the actual level of infiltrators is less than one third of the figures widely reported.

Srinagar, Kashmir  - At least five people were killed in a roadside bombing carried out by Muslim separatist militants in India-administered Kashmir, police said Wednesday.

Eight were wounded in the blast that targeted a small bus Tuesday night in Bafliz village, about 45 kilometres east of the state's winter capital, Jammu, senior police official HD Jamwal said.

The victims included members of a village defence committee, an armed militia established by the state government to work in coordination with the security forces against militants.

Islamabad, Apr 22 : Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has said that it had nothing to do with parliamentary elections being held in India, and dismissed reports of its militants entering Jammu and Kashmir.

The chief spokesman of Tehreek-e-Taliban, Haji Muslim Khan, strongly refuted reports that the Taliban had entered Jammu and Kashmir.

“We fail to understand why India has unleashed a propaganda that the Taliban had entered the Kashmir Valley. By such tactics, India wants to harass Kashmiris,” he said, adding that they only wanted to enforce the will of Allah (Islam) all over the world.

Poonch, Apr

Srinagar, Apr. 20: The municipal corporation of Srinagar has launched a massive cleaning drive in association with the Trader''s Federation in a bid to make the city polythene free.

The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has joined the anti-polythene drive, and started their campaign from world famous Dal Lake by collecting polythene bags from the lake.

"We have taken this initiative to clean the area surrounding Nehru Park and Dal Lake and other places so as to clean the environment," said Sunil Kumar, a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel.