Srinagar: As the security forces have intensified their ‘All-Out’ operation against militants in Jammu and Kashmir, three more cadres of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were killed in a fire fight in frontier Kupwara district on Tuesday. In another gun battle raging in a different area of Kupwara since Tuesday afternoon, one Army jawan was killed and two others were wounded.
The authorities here said that with the killing of three more militants, the toll has risen to 21 in the first 21 days of November. As many as 194 militants have been eliminated since ‘Operation All-Out’ was launched jointly by the Army, the J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) earlier this year, they said. As per the police statistics, seventy-one security personnel have also laid down their lives while fighting the militants, so far, this year.
The security forces had before launching the operation ‘All-Out’ ‘shortlisted’ 258 militants from a clutch of outfits including LeT, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Hizb-ul-Mujahedin and Al-Badr Mujahedin. 128 of them were foreigners, mainly Pakistanis, and the rest local Kashmiris, the police sources here said.
The security forces achieved a major breakthrough against the LeT on November 18 when six of its top militants were killed in a gun battle in Hajin area of northern Bandipore district. Among the slain militants was Owaid, a son of Zaki Rehman Maki and nephew of Zakiur Rehman Lakhavi, the mastermind of 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the police and the Army had said.
Lakhvi is a top leader of the LeT and currently serves as its ‘supreme commander’ of operations in Jammu and Kashmir. He figures in the National Investigating Agency (NIA)’s most wanted list. One Garud commando of the Indian Air Force was also killed and a civilian injured during the encounter.
The officials said that in fresh clash reported from Magam village of Handwara area of Kupwara three more LeT militants were killed on Tuesday. In a tweet, the Director General of Police, Shesh Paul Vaid, said, “Three LeT terrorists-all Pakistanis- neutralised in Magam area of Handwara district in North Kashmir. Excellent work!”
In another gun battle which started in Zirhama forest area of Kupwara on Tuesday afternoon, one Army jawan has been killed and two others have been injured. The police here said that the SOG along with the Army’s 21 Raj Rifles, 23 Para Commandos and 160 Territorial Army and the 98th Battalion of the CRPF launched a cordon-and-search operation in a Gujjar settlement tucked away in Zirhama woods “on specific inputs about the presence of a large group of terrorists in the area.” “The security forces are now engaged in a gun battle with them. One soldier has lost his life and two others have been injured, so far,” said a police officer.
