A local militant who was involved in the killing of a non-local street-vendor, was among five militants gunned down by security forces in two separate overnight encounters in south Kashmir’s Shopian district on Tuesday.
Three militants were killed in Tulran village of Shopian, 56 kms from Srinagar, where an anti-militancy operation was launched on Monday evening. The militants were trapped inside a two-storey residential house.
Reports said during the night, security forces had closed all entry and exit points of Tulnar and installed lights to ensure that the militants do not flee taking advantage of darkness.
The gun battle resumed with the first light of the morning and all the three militants were killed, police said.
“Out of three killed terrorists, one terrorist has been identified as Mukhtar Shah of Ganderbal, who shifted to Shopian after killing one street hawker Virendra Paswan of Bihar,” IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar was quoted as saying by Kashmir Zone Police.
The other two militants have been identified as Danish Ahmad of Rai Kapran and Yawar Ahmad of Pehlipora Shopian.
Police said the slain militants were affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)/The Resistance Front (TRF) and were given “ample opportunity” to surrender. However, police said that they did not relent.
A video purportedly released by police appealing to the militants to surrender has been doing the rounds on social media.
Hours later, two more militants were killed in Feripora area of the same district in an encounter with the security forces. A defence spokesman said the operation was launched in Feripora following inputs from the J&K Police.
“Repeated surrender appeals were turned down by terrorists, who fired on forces, forcing the forces to take action. In the gunfight, two terrorists were eliminated,” he said and added an AK 47 and war-like stores were recovered from the spot.
Violence has witnessed a spurt in Jammu and Kashmir in recent days. On Monday two militants were killed in separate encounters in Bandipora and Anantnag districts of Kashmir. As many as five army personnel, including a junior commissioned officer (JCO), were killed during a counter-terrorist operation in border Poonch district of Jammu region on Monday.
Last week seven civilians, including four from minority communities, were killed by militants in separate incidents in Kashmir.
Meanwhile, General officer Commanding (GoC) of Srinagar based 15-Corps, Lieutenant General D P Pandey said he would not like to connect latest anti-militancy operations with the events (civilian killings) that took place in Srinagar or elsewhere.
While condemning the civilian killings he said, “Security forces and people need to be very careful to keep the communal harmony intact.”
On the infiltration attempts, the GoC said that the Army was alert and ready to foil any such attempts along the LoC.
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