Another encounter in Kashmir; soldier, 5 Lashkar militants killed

In the fifth fierce gunfight in the Valley in 10 days, five Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants, including a commander, and an Army soldier were killed in south Kashmir’s Pulwama.

Police identified the slain militants as Nishaz Ahmad Lone, Danish Manzoor, Amir Wagay, Mehran Manzoor and Abu Rehan. While Lone was the ‘district commander’ of the LeT, Rehan was a Pakistani, police said.

In a statement released by police, IGP, Kashmir, Vijay Kumar called the operation a big success. The dead jawan was identified as Kashi Rao. He was airlifted to the Army’s Base Hospital in Srinagar, but succumbed to his wounds.

A joint team of the J&K Police, Army and paramilitary forces had cordoned off Hanjin Rajpora village in Pulwama on Thursday night following inputs about the presence of militants there. Police said that as they were zeroing in on a house holding the militants, the latter opened indiscriminate fire in a bid to escape.

The gunfight went on through the night. Police said the trapped militants were given an option to surrender but they refused.

“Due to darkness, the operation was suspended. However, the cordon remained intact throughout the night. Today, in the morning repeated announcements were again made (asking the) hiding terrorists to surrender but the terrorists fired on the joint search party and the fire was retaliated. In the initial exchange of fire, two Army jawans received gunshot injuries and were evacuated to hospital. However, one among the injured succumbed,” police said in an official statement. “During the ensuing encounter, five terrorists were killed and their bodies were retrieved.”

Police also claimed to have recovered an SLR rifle from the slain militants. It said the rifle had been snatched by militants in 2016 from J&K policemen guarding a TV tower in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.