At least two militants, including a Pakistani national, have been killed in a fierce gunfight raging in an orchard outside Padgam Pora-Wandakpora villages in Jammu and Kashmir’s southern district of Pulwama.
One of the militants has been identified as Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s Abu Okasa, who was wanted by the National Investigation Agency for his alleged involvement in August 5, 2015 attack on a BSF convoy near Udhampur and carried a cash reward of Rs 500,000 over his head.
The fighting broke out on Wednesday evening when the security forces laid siege to a farm of the state’s agriculture department where a large group of LeT militants, including a top commander, were reportedly holding a meeting. The militants tried to break through the security dragnet by opening indiscriminate fire, but reinforcements from the Army’s 50 and 55 Rashtriya Rifles and local police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group along with CRPF quickly laid two rows of Concertina-barbed wire around adjacent apple orchards and a poplar nursery to block their way.
As fighting was underway, the security forces found the bullet-riddled corpses of two militants near a mountain stream close to the encounter site. One of the slain militants was later identified as LeT’s Abu Okasa, a Pakistani national, and the other also appears to be a non-local, officials said.
Police sources said that the security forces had specific information about the LeT’s most-wanted commander Abu Dujana being among 10 to 11 militants trapped in the besieged area. Some of them may have actually managed to flee, a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
Pulwama’s SP Rayees Ahmed Butt said the fighting between security forces and a group of three to four militants is going on after they escaped into a poplar nursery in the area following a brief exchange of gunfire.
SP Awantipora, Shridhar Patil, confirmed the bodies of two militants have been found near the encounter site.
The NIA, which is investigating the August 5, 2015 attack in which two BSF men were killed, had announced cash reward of Rs 500,000 each on information leading to the arrest of Abu Okasa and his accomplice Zarkam, alias Muhammad Bhai. Following the attack, Muhammad Naved Yakub, also a Pakistan militant of LeT, was captured alive by a group of villagers. His accomplice Muhammad Noam was, however, killed in the security forces’ retaliatory fire.
Reports also said that soon after the fighting broke out, hundreds of residents from neighbouring villages came out on the streets and marched towards the encounter site chanting pro-freedom slogans. They clashed with the security forces when they came in their way. A mob attacked a vehicle of the security forces while it was passing through neighbouring township of Kakapora. At both places, the police fired rifles over the heads of stone-hurling crowds and also burst teargas canisters.
Meanwhile, three suspected militants engaged by security forces in a brief gunfight at Khimber, on the outskirts of summer capital Srinagar, earlier during the day on Wednesday managed to escape, leaving behind an AK-47 rifle. The search operation launched in the area following reports about the presence of militants was later called off, police sources said.
