Main Pulwama conspirator shot dead in J&K encounter

Srinagar: A Jaish-e-Mohammed cadre who was believed to be the “main conspirator” behind the February 14 terror attack in Pulwama was killed along with another militant, possibly a Pakistani national, in a fierce gunbattle that started Sunday evening and went on till the early hours of Monday in the district’s Tral area.

Officials identified him as 23-year-old Mudassir Ahmed Khan, alias Muhammad Bhai, an electrician with a graduate degree and a resident of Midoora village in Tral (Pulwama).

The police said the identity of the other slain militant was being ascertained. It, however, also said that on the basis of the incriminating material recovered from the site of the encounter, it is understood that he was a Pakistani national codenamed Khalid.

On February 14, a Jaish cadre, 22-year-old Adil Ahmed Dar, alias “Waqas commando”, detonated the Maruti Suzuki Eeco with at least 60 kg of deadly RDX after driving it parallel to a fully-occupied bus that was part of a large CRPF convoy at Lethapora along the Srinagar-Jammu highway. Well over 40 CRPF personnel were killed and many others injured in the massive blast, the deadliest carried out ever during the nearly three-decade-old militancy in J&K.

The officials said it was Khan who arranged the vehicle and explosives used in the strike. They said Khan is also believed to be involved in the terror strike at the Army camp in Sunjawan in Jammu in February 2018, in which six soldiers and a civilian were killed. His role has also come under the lens in the Lethapora attack on a CRPF camp in January 2018 that left five personnel dead.

An earlier report said the other militant killed with him during the gunfight in Tral’s Pinglish village was Sajjad Bhat, a resident of Bijbehara area in Anantnag district, and the owner of the Maruti Eeco used in the blast. But officials said since the militants’ bodies were completely charred in the gunfight they were finding it difficult to identify them. Bhat’s brother refused to take the body, saying it was charred beyond recognition. However, Khan’s body was taken by his family and he has since been buried in a cemetery of Tral.

The fighting at Pinglish erupted Sunday evening after the security forces laid siege to the village to conduct an operation to flush out militants, dead or alive. “The security forces launched a cordon and search operation after receiving specific intelligence about the presence of terrorists in the area. The operation turned into an encounter after the terrorists opened fire at the search party, which retaliated”, a police
spokesman said here.

The officials said Khan had joined the JeM some time in 2017 as an “overground worker” and was later drawn into the outfit by Noor Muhammad Tantray, alias Noor Trali,
 who is believed to have helped the group’s revival in the Kashmir Valley. But after Tantray was killed in December 2017, Khan disappeared from his home on January 14, 2018, and was active since then. The officials also said that after completing his graduation, Khan did a one-year diploma course as an electrician from an Industrial Training Institute (ITI).

The National Investigation Agency, which is probing the February 14 attack, had carried out searches at the residence of Khan on February 27.

Confirming that Khan was the “main conspirator” of the February 14 attack, Lt. Gen. Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon, GOC of the Army’s Srinagar-based 15 Corps (also called Chinar Corps), told a hurriedly-called press conference here: “Jaish commander Mudassir Khan was among the terrorists killed in the encounter. He was the main conspirator of the Pulwama terror attack.”

CRPF IGP (operations) for south Kashmir Zulfiqar Hasan refused to term this as avenging the deaths in the February 14 strike. Replying a question, he said: “We are peacekeepers and we ensure no one raises a gun against the country.”

IGP (Kashmir Range) Swayam Prakash Pani said the identity of the second militant was not ascertained yet. “We know his code was ‘Khalid’. We are trying to find his actual identity,” he said, adding that he is believed to be a Pakistani. He added Khan’s killing is a “significant dent” to the JeM.

Mr Pani further said the incriminating material found at the slain militants’ hideout would be shared with the NIA. Lt. Gen. Dhillon said ever since the February 14 attack, as many as 18 militants had been killed in action by the security forces across the Kashmir Valley. He added that in the first 70 days of 2019, the security forces had been successful in eliminating 44 militants, mainly from JeM. Replying a question, he said: “Against 1,629 ceasefire violations along the Line of Control in 2018, this year 478 ceasefire violations have already taken place.”