Srinagar: Two militants of Jaish-e-Muhammad were killed in an overnight gunfight in Rajpora area of South Kashmir’s Awantipora on Tuesday, officials said.
“Yesterday (May 30), at about 1730 hours, on a specific input generated by Police regarding presence of (militants) in village Rajpora area of Awantipora, a joint cordon and search operation was launched by Police, Army (42RR) and CRPF 130Bn/180Bn in the area,” a police spokesperson said.
During the search operation, he said, as the joint search party approached towards the suspected spot, the hiding militants fired indiscriminately upon the joint search party, leading to an encounter.
In the ensuing encounter, he said, two local militants identified as Shahid Ahmad Rather son of Ghulam Ahmad Rather of Larow Jageer Tral of “JeM” and Umar Yousuf son of Mohammad Yousef of Tukro Keegam Shopian “linked with LeT” were killed.
“As per police records, both (of them) were categorized (militants) and part of groups involved in several cases including attacks on Police/SF.”. Besides other cases, the spokesperson said Shahid was involved in killing of a lady Mst Shakeela of Aripal and a government employee Javaid Ahmad of Lurgam Tral. “He was also involved in motivating/recruiting local youth to join (militant) ranks and on his motivation Mohd Shafi Dar of Wagad Tral had joined (militant) ranks who was later on neutralized in Kulgam on 29/12/21”.
He said two two AK-47 rifles have been recovered from the site of encounter.
