Two Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militants were killed in a gunbattle with the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district on Thursday. The Army termed their killings a major success in the security forces’ ongoing counter-insurgency campaign.
The duo, identified as local resident Manzoor Ahmed Butt and Pakistani national Zargam, alias Muhammad Bhai, were wanted by the National Investigation Agency in connection with the August 5 terror strike outside the garrison town of Udhampur and each carried a cash reward of '500,000 on his head.
One Lashkar militant, Muhammad Noaman, was also killed in the security forces’ retaliatory fire whereas another Pakistani cadre, Muhammad Naveed Yakub, was captured alive. Abdur Rehman, alias Abu Qasim, a Pakistani militant who for his deadly pursuits in Jammu and Kashmir over the years rose to a top position in the LeT and carried a reward of Rs 2 million on his head for his role in the Udhampur attack, was killed in a fire fight with security forces in nearby Kulgam district on October 29.
The police and Army officials here said that the operation to flush out militants dead or alive was launched in Pulwama’s Gasu village on Wednesday afternoon following specific information about the presence of the militants there. As the Army troops from 53 Rashtriya Rifle and the men from the J&K police’s counter-insurgency special operations group and 183 Battalion of the CRPF zeroed in on a private house in the village’s Harpura locality, the holed up militants opened fire, triggering the encounter which continued through Thursday.
Soon reinforcements from 55 Rashtriya Rifles joined the operation. “While firing indiscriminately, the militants jumped through the window of the house owned by one Muhammad Sultan Dar and tried to break the cordon but were quickly shot dead by the security forces,” a police official said.
