SRINAGAR: Three Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militants including a top commander were on Wednesday killed in a gunfight with the security forces in Tral area of Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district.
Director general of police Dilbag Singh said that the security forces including the Army, J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group and Central Reserve Police Force overnight laid siege to Tral’s Sherabad area to start searches on credible input about the presence of militants. He said while the searches were underway, militants holed up in the area and opened fire on the security forces, triggering an encounter in which three members of the Hizb-ul were killed.
The slain have been identified as Jahangir Ahmad Wani alias Umar Mukhtar, Raja Umar Maqbool and Sadat Ahmad Thokar — all local Kashmiris.
He said that Wani was a top commander of the Hizb-ul involved in a number of killings including those of two civilians and figured in the list of ‘most wanted terrorists’ by the security forces. “Jahangir had a history of terror crime records since 2018 and was operating as commander of proscribed terror outfit Hizb-ul in the area.
He was involved in planning and executing several terror attacks in the area along with Maqbool. Several terror crime cases including killing security forces personnel and civilians and setting a pharmacy, a truck, a Sufi shrine and a mosque on fire in Tral area stand registered against him,” he told reporters here.
He said that Sadat was also involved in several terror cases including attack on security establishments and civilian atrocities.
A rumour purporting that one of the slain militants belonged to Baramulla, traders brought their shutters down and vehicles were withdrawn from the roads in the town, 55-km northwest of summer capital Srinagar.
