Srinagar: A top Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) commander Mufti Waqas allegedly involved in the recent terror attack at Sunjuwan Army Station in Jammu was killed in a brief firefight with the security forces in Awantipore area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Monday evening.
The officials said that gunfight erupted during an operation launched jointly by the Army’s 50 Rashtriya Rifles, the J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at Hatwar outside the highway town of Awantipore and about 35 kilometers south of summer capital Srinagar.
Defence spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said that the security forces laid siege to Hatwar following specific intelligence input about the presence of the JeM commander Waqas in the village. Waqas, a Pakistani national, was working as the outfit’s ‘Operational Commander’ in the Valley.
The Army and police officials said that the slain JeM commander was involved in the recent terror attacks at the Sunjuwan Army Station in winter capital Jammu and a CRPF training centre in Lethpora area of Pulwama.
During the three day armed standoff at Sunjuwan which had started on February 10, six soldiers, a civilian and all the three assailants were killed. In the January 31 ‘fidayeen’ attack on the CRPF centre at Lethpora and subsequent encounter, an officer and four jawans and three militants were killed.
Col Kalia said that an AK -47 rifle was found with the slain militant commander.
He said, “During the surgical operation, the mastermind of the Sunjuwan and Lethpora terrorist attacks and Jaish-e-Muhammed operational commander Mufti Waqas was eliminated. He was a Category A++ terrorist.”
The spokesman added that there were no civilian casualties or collateral damage during the operation and that the killing of the JeM commander “has resulted in a major dent to the designs of JeM as after elimination of their earlier operational commander Noor Muhammad Tantray in the same area on December 17, his successor too has been killed.”
A statement issued by the police in Srinagar said that JeM commander Mufti Waqas alias Abu Arsalan was the “chief architect” of several terror attacks including on the District Police Lines Pulwama (August 26, 2017), Lethpora CRPF camp (December 31, 2017) and Sunjawan Military Station (February 10, 2018).
