SRINAGAR: Two Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) militants holed up in an under-construction multi-storey building in Srinagar’s Karan Nagar area were killed in the security forces’ final ass-ault on Tuesday afternoon, 32 hours after the duo had made an abortive attempt to storm a nearby camp of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
Inspector general of police (Kashmir range) Swayam Prakash Pani, announcing it at a press conference here, said, “Both the terrorists who were engaged in a gunfight with security forces since Monday morning have been neutralised.”
He said that one CRPF jawan Muhammad Mujahid Khan, a resident of Arah district of Bihar, was killed and a J&K policeman, Javid Ahmad, was injured while fighting the militants. He added that the identity of the slain militants is being ascertained.
The militant duo had tried to storm the camp of the CRPF’s 23rd Battalion at Karan Nagar shortly before dawn on Monday, exactly the way a group of militants believed to be members of Jaish-e-Muhammad did at an Army station at Sanjwan in winter capital Jammu at the weekend.
But their attempt was foiled by alert sentry who, the officials said, on noticing suspicious persons at around 4.30 am, carrying backpacks and weapons (AK47 rifles), challenged them and opened fire as well. The militants fled into a nearby under-construction building. They were encircled by reinforcements and soon a gunfight started.
Intermittent exchanges of small weapons continued till late Monday even-ing when the operation to flush the militants out was suspended by the security forces to avoid collateral damage. Howe-ver, all entry and exist points of Karan Nagar were plugged to prevent the militants from fleeing the area. Also, restrictio-ns were enforced in vast area of central Srinagar in anticipation of public protests. Earlier, the local residents living around the encounter site were evacuated to safer places. cc
Authorities also imposed restrictions under Section 144 of the CrPC in a few areas.
