After failing to attack CM at KU,
LeT ultras killed in Sopore
‘Div Commdr’ Hashaam, Abdullah Shaheen killed in 24-hour-long
operation
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
Highly placed authoritative sources revealed to Early Times that
Muzamil alias Urfi alias Hashaam of Badam Bagh, Sopore, alongwith a Pakistani
militant of LeT, had been given the task of planning and executing a fatal
attack on Chief Minister Omar Abdullah immediately after the latter’s open challenge
to militants last month. In his reaction to killing of a Panch in Sangrama area
of Sopore, Chief Minister had publicly commented that militants were "cowards" and
they had been attacking soft targets. He had challenged them to carry out an
attack on him and face the retaliation.
According to the information available with the official sources,
some Sopore-based militants of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, headed by Muzamil, conducted
a reconnaissance survey of several sensitive spots in the capital city. As they
were planning to execute a ‘fidayeen attack’ on the Chief Minister during one
of his recent visits to the Kashmir
University , Police and
intelligence agencies got an inkling of the strike. Muzamil could not
be traced immediately but his brother, Muntazar Amin Dar, who is a student of
Masters in Commerce, was arrested by Sopore Police and passed on to Special
Operations Group (SOG) Srinagar for sustained interrogation.
However, SOG failed to extract any significant information from
Muntazar. According to the interrogators, Muntazar was a “hard core
pro-Pakistani student” but did not have knowledge of his militant brother's guerrilla operations, including his plan to execute an attack on CM at the
University campus. He was finally released today after Muzamil died in an
encounter and a day after a group of students staged demonstrations and
threatened to boycott classes in case the detained student was not set free.
Sources said that while tracking Muzamil and two Pakistani cadres
of LeT, Police and security forces received information of the LeT Divisional
Commander’s presence in Shalpora locality of Sopore, some 300 yards behind
Police Station on Sopore-Bandipore road, in the afternoon on Saturday. Sopore
Police, alongwith CRPF 179 Bn and Rashtriya Rifles 22 Bn, laid siege to the
locality and began a cordon-and-search operation. During the initial stage of
the operation, two militants hiding in a residential house opened fire from an
AK-47 rifle and lobbed two grenades.
A CRPF constable sustained injuries. Police and security
forces maintained a tight cordon and stormed the identified hideout in the
forenoon today. Dy SP of SOG Sopore, Riyaz Ahmad Tantray, had a providential
escape as he was hit straight in his forehead. His bullet-proof headgear
neutralized the brunt. Thereafter, Police and troops brought down the target
house with IEDs, killing both the holed up militants. Their dead bodies were
recovered from the debris late in the afternoon.
Sources participating in the operation said that one AK-47 rifle
and two Chinese pistols were recovered from the spot. They said that collateral
damage was restricted to only three personnel getting injured. Sources
identified one of them as ASI Kafil Ahmad of Sopore Police and another as Naik
Gurjan Singh of RR 22 Bn.
GOC of Kilo Force, Lt Gen Sarat Chand, Commander of Army’s
Watlab-based Sector-5, Brig J.P. Mathews, Commanding Officer of RR 22 Bn, Col
Bikram Saini, SP Sopore, Imtiyaz Hussain Mir, and other officers supervised the
24-hour-long operation.
IGP Kashmir, S.M.
Sahai, visited Sopore immediately after both the militants got killed.
According to an official press release, he told mediapersons police
intervention party stormed into the target house after nightlong siege of some
houses in the morning toda. He said that ASI Kafil Ahmad of Sopore Police and
Naik Gurjan Singh of 22 RR got injured.
“In the ensuing
gunfight that lasted for several hours two militants of LET got killed who were
identified as Muzamil Amin Dar alias Hashaam alias Urfi alias Usman S/o Mohammad
Amin Dar R/o Badambagh Sopore; Divisional Commander LeT, and Abdullah Shaheen
resident of Pakistan”, IGP said. He added that Hashaam was wanted in several
terrorist acts, including the killing of SPO Reyazul Hassan Tantray S/o Ghulam
Hassan Tantray R/o Brath Kalan on September 8th this year.
IGP said that Muzamil’s name also figured in the
investigation of a bomb blast in Delhi
in which two persons from Sopore, namely Ehtisham Malik and Tauseef Ahmad Peer,
were arrested by Delhi Police in February 2012. IGP said that Muzamil alias
Hashaam had gone underground in hometown Sopore immediately after the arrest of
his associates by Delhi Police.
Sources said that Muzamil had planned and executed a
number of strikes, including the murder of SPO Reyazul Hassan Tantray. He had
gunned down the SPO at his home last month. Before going underground, Muzamil
had completed the paramedical Theatre Assistant course from Khanam’s Hospital
and had been engaged on contractual basis by the state Health Department. According
to official records, he had remained closely associated with the most dreaded Pakistani
commander of LeT, Abdullah Uni, who died in an encounter with Police and forces
last year. He also worked with Uni’s successors Akash Badar and Fahadullah, both Pakistani nationals.
Reports from Sopore said that Abdullah Shaheen’s dead body
was buried in a graveyard reserved for unidentified foreign militants at
Dangiwacha in Rafiabad. Muzamil’s body was buried in a local graveyard in
Sopore. Reports said that Sopore township observed shutdown but just 400 people,
including about 100 women, participated in the funeral. Traders have called for
three days shutdown over Muzamil’s death in the gunbattle.
END