Srinagar: A top Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) militant Waseem Shah, along with an accomplice, was killed in a fire-fight with the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district on Saturday.
The police claimed that Shah was the main architect of 2016 unrest in south Kashmir and carried a cash reward of Rs 1 million on his head.
During the encounter, violent protests broke out in the area leaving, at least, one person dead and 35 others injured. While the police said that civilian was killed in the crossfire between the security forces and the holed up militants, the locals alleged that he was deliberately targeted by the security forces. The hospital sources said that he died of a bullet wound.
The police said that 31-year-old Shah and his bodyguard Nisar Ahmed Mir were trapped in a private house in Pulwama’s Littar area when the security forces including the J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group, the Army’s Rashtriya Rifles and the CRPF launched a cordon-and-search operation early on Saturday. “The militants opened fire at the search party and Shah who was known also as ‘Abu Osama Bhai’ and Mir were killed in the ensuing gun battle”, the officials.
The house in which the duo was trapped suffered extensive damage in the fire fight. The officials added that this was the first encounter in Littar area, considered to be a hotbed of militancy, in four years.
