4 militants, 2 Army jawans killed in J&K encounter

SRINAGAR: Four militants, two Army jawans and a civilian were killed in a fierce gunfight in a remote village of Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Kulgam district on Sunday. 

An Army Major and three of his men were injured in the clash. They were airlifted to Srinagar and admitted to the 92- base Hospital at the 15 Corps headquarters in Badami Bagh Cantonment here. The Army sources said that while the condition of the injured officer is "very critical", the other soldiers are "stable."

Soon after the encounter, intense clashes erupted between the security forces and local residents, leaving one more person dead and scores others injured in firing. Doctors attending on the injured said that several people have been targeted in head, chest or other upper parts of body “obviously with the intent to kill” them.   

Both the Army and J&K police termed the killing of militants as a “major breakthrough” against Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahedin. Reports said two slain men belonged to each outfits. 

The police officials in Srinagar said that members of its counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) along with the troops from Army's 1 Rashtriya Rifles and 18 Battalion of the CRPF laid siege to Nagabal hamlet of Kulgam's Frisal area at 4.30 am following a tip off about the presence of militants.

A report said that after laying cordon around the village, the troops started a house-to-house search but did not find any militant. The SOG men, however, insisted that their "source" who had alerted them about the presence of militants in the village could not be wrong.

According to this report, on their insistence, a particular house was searched again during which the security forces found a false ceiling where the militants were hiding. The moment they were spotted the militants fired a heavy barrage of gunfire killing and injuring the soldiers who were accompanied by the house owner and his son. 

A statement issued by the police here in the evening said that three militants managed to escape from the cordon. “Consequently, the hiding militants opened fire on the joint search party. In the initial firing two soldiers of 1st Rashtriya Rifles attained martyrdom and a civilian Ishfaq Majeed Reshi was also killed. Further two more security forces personnel received grievous injuries”, the statement said.

The two soldiers who lost their lives in the militant firing have been identified as Lance Naiks Raghubeer Singh (4578033Y) and Bhandoriya Gopal Singh (45687392W).  The locals alleged that while Reshi and his father were used as “human shield” by the security forces while searching the area for militants, the other civilian killed in subsequent clashes fell victim to “target killing”. The authorities strongly refuted the charge. The police statement said that one person was killed and some others were injured in “a law and order situation” after the encounter and that the incidents are being investigated.   

The slain militants are Mudassir Ahmed Tantrey alias Asim, Wakeel Ahmed Thokar, Farooq Ahmed Bhat and Muhammad Younis Lone- all from south Kashmir. The police confirmed that two of the slain militants Bhat and Lone were associated with the Hizb and two others Tantrey and Thokar with the LeT. It said that two AK rifles, one Insas riffle with ammunition and two pistols were found on the encounter site.

“These slain militants were involved in several incidents of militancy, including the killing of policemen,” the statement said. However, the Hizb’s ‘Operational’ spokesman Burhanuddin told a local news agency on phone that all the four militants belonged to the outfit. He also claimed that before “achieving martyrdom” they inflicted heavy casualties on security forces. “Several Indian soldiers were killed while many of them suffered disabilities. Security establishments hide the truth to stop demoralization of their men,” he said.

J&K's Director General of Police, S.P. Vaid, termed the killing of the militants as a "major success" against militants and those of the two Army jawans and the civilian (house-owner's son) in the encounter as "unfortunate." 

Reports said that soon after the pre-dawn swoop by the security forces, hundreds of residents relocated to the encounter site chanting pro-freedom slogans and hurling stones at uniformed men. Scores of protesters were injured in ensuing intense streets clashes with the security forces and one of them identified as 22-year-old Mushtaq Ahmed Itoo succumbed of a bullet wound in a hospital in neighbouring Anantnag town later.

In the evening, thousands of people attended the funeral of slain militants and civilians. Opposition National Conference and various separatist organizations have alleged that the security forces fired indiscriminately at the people mourning and protesting the killing of militants.

An alliance of key separatists-Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik- have called for a one-day strike in Kashmir on Monday against the civilian killings and also asked the people to march on Kulgam on Friday to show solidarity with the locals.