Kashmir beauty salon shooting

Security checks around Gonikhan market after the shooting

By Altaf Hussain in Srinagar

Suspected militants have shot and injured three people inside a beauty salon in Srinagar, the capital of Indian administered Kashmir.

Unknown assailants stormed a beauty salon at the Gonikhan market on Friday afternoon and fired indiscriminately.

The owner of the salon, Mohammad Mohsin, and two women were injured.

One of the women worked at the salon and the other was a customer.

Mr Mohsin was injured in the abdomen and his condition is said to be serious.

In recent years, separatist militants have issued several warnings to Muslim women to observe the Islamic code of conduct.

There have been a few incidents in the past when the militants have shot women in the legs for wearing tight trousers or clothes revealing parts of their body.

No militant group has admitted responsibility for the latest incident.

Other violence

Elsewhere, suspected separatists have shot dead a middle-aged man and his grandson in a village near the border town of Handwara.

Police say the two were relatives of an activist of a pro-India insurgent group, Ikhwan.

Two members of Ikhwan were also been shot at and wounded at Kulgam Bazar in south Kashmir.

In another incident a shopkeeper was shot dead by unidentified militants in front of his shop at Khanyar in Srinagar this afternoon.

Police say Pakistani and Indian troops exchanged heavy artillery fire in Karnah, Keran and Teetwal sectors on Thursday night.

They say two dozen houses and half a dozen shops near a mosque have been damaged in Pakistani shelling in Karnah and Teetwal.

However, no casualties have been reported.