M A I N   N E W S

3 Hizb militants, cop killed in Kashmir encounter
Suhail A Shah

Anantnag, July 1
A member of the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the police was killed and two security personnel — a policeman and a CRPF jawan — were injured in an encounter with militants in the Tral area of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district.

Three Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) militants were also killed in the gunfight. “We have retrieved the bodies of the militants and are in the process of identifying them," said a senior police officer.

A search operation is being conducted and a large cache of guns and ammunition has been seized. The encounter began on Monday morning when, according to sources, men from the SOG, CRPF and Army’s 42 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) cordoned off Mundoora village in Tral.

“We had a specific tip-off about the presence of militants at a house in the area,” said a senior police officer.

He said when the forces zeroed in on the hiding place of the militants, they fired at the security personnel with automatic weapons.

Sources said that after a lull in the firing from the militants, the security forces tried to retrieve the bodies of the militants.

However, sudden firing from the other side forced them to retreat.

“The fire stopped for quite some time. That led us to believe that all three of them had been killed. But fresh fire suggested that one of them was alive,” said the police official.

The policeman who was killed has been identified as Mushtaq Ahmad. A wreath-laying ceremony was organised in his honour at the district Police Lines in Lethpora area of Pulwama district.

Meanwhile, local residents in large numbers came out after the encounter and began protesting against the security forces.

The encounter comes at a time when the Valley is observing a complete shutdown against the killing of two youths in Army firing in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district.

This is the second major militancy related incident in Tral area in just over a month’s time.

On May 24, militants laid an ambush and killed four Army personnel. A militant was also killed in the ensuing gun battle.

Meanwhile, security forces have killed as many as five militants in the past month or so in different encounters across south Kashmir’s Pulwama and Shopian districts.