SRINAGAR: Four militants were killed in two separate gun battles with security forces in Kashmir Valley on Thursday.
Officials said that three militants were gunned down by the security forces during a fierce fire fight in Yawran village of southern Shopian district.
They have been identified as Sajad Khanday, Aqib Ahmed Dar and Basharat Ahmed Mir, all residents of neighbouring Pulwama district.
A police spokesman said that the slain men were part of a combined group of proscribed militant outfits Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT).
“They were wanted by law for their complicity in a series of terror crimes including attacks on security establishments and civilian atrocities,” the spokesman claimed.
He said that the fighting broke out during a cordon-and-search operation launched by the security forces after learning about the presence of militants in the village.
“Incriminating materials including 3 AK rifles were recovered from the site of encounter,” the spokesman said.
The secod gun fight took place during a similar operation in Yaroo village of Langaet area of frontier Kupwara district, the police said.
“As the searches were going on in the village, the search party was fired upon by the hiding militants. The fire was retaliated leading to a gunfight,” they said adding that one militant was killed in this clash whose identity is being ascertained.
Later the police identified the militant killed in the clash with security forces in Yaroo village of Kupwara as Danish Ahm-ed Dar of Jaish-e-Muh-ammad. A report from Shopian said that irate crowds of mainly youth clashed with the security forces during and after the gun fight in Shopian’s Yawran village and its neighbourhood. Several people were injured as the mobs hurled stone on the security forces who responded by bursting teargas canisters and firing pellet shotguns to quell them, the report said. The mobile internet services in the district were suspended “as a precautionary measure”, the officials said.
