Army Jawan Killed in Gunfight With Terrorists in J&K’s Kishtwar

Srinagar: An Army jawan laid down his life while fighting separatist militants at Shingpora, a remote area of Jammu and Kashmir’s eastern Kishtwar district, on Thursday.

A spokesman of the Army’s Nagrota (Jammu)-based 16 Corps -also known as White Knight Corps- said that an operation to flush out militants from the hilly zone of Kishtwar’s Chatroo area was launched jointly by the Army and the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the J&K police early Thursday. “Soon contact was established with terrorists following which additional troops were inducted. The operation to neutralize the terrorist is underway,” the spokesman said.

In a post on ‘X’, the White Knight Corps said, “During the ongoing operation, fierce gunfight is continuing. One of our Bravehearts sustained grievous injuries in the exchange of fire and has succumbed despite best medical efforts. Operation is in progress.”

The police sources said that four heavily armed militants are believed to have been trapped in the besieged area and that they are making attempts to break the dragnet to escape.

The sources said that the operation was launched based on specific intelligence inputs about the presence of militants at Shinghpora.

Meanwhile, the Counter-Intelligence Kashmir (CIK), an intelligence wing of the J&K police, has filed a charge-sheet against a “terrorist associate” who was running an Airtel franchise for issuing SIM cards to an “active terrorist”.

A statement issued by the CIK here on Thursday said that its police station produced a charge sheet against the accused Mudasir Ahmad Sheikh, a resident of Hanand Chawalgam village of southern Kulgam district and a vendor of the Airtel company, before the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (Kulgam) for issuing SIM card connection against a “non-existing person which was actually used by a terrorist."

The statement said that the Police Station CIK had received information through reliable sources that the procurement of SIM card connections from various telecom service providers by terrorists, members of proscribed organizations and Over Ground Workers (OGWs), is made in a pre-planned criminal conspiracy, with the active connivance of their sympathizers and, in several instances, with the complicity of franchise or the point of sale (POS) through fraudulent and dishonest means.

“Accordingly, a case under FIR number 18/2020 U/S 13 Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, read with section 420, 468, 471 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code was registered at Police Station CIK Srinagar for a thorough probe,” it said, adding, “During the course of investigation, it was revealed that the accused was a vendor of ‘Airtel Telecom Service’, running his shop under the name and style of “MICRO WORLD” at Kulgam. It was established that the accused had manipulated and forged a genuine electoral identity card and used the same to issue a SIM card against a non-existent person”.

The CIK said that the accused, as a vendor, had also mentioned fictitious and deficient particulars in the Customer Application Form (CAF) with an objective to issue the SIM card against a non-existent person and pass on the SIM card to a terrorist for his use.

“The investigation has established that the subscriber of the SIM card shown in the Customer Application Form was not found existing on ground and the SIM card had actually been issued to a terrorist”, it said.

The CIK appealed to the public, especially youth of Kashmir Valley to “adhere to the advisories in this regard and take every precaution to ensure that their documents are not misused for obtaining SIM cards fraudulently”. It further stated, “People are also advised not to share their SIM card with anyone, however, close the person may be."