CM chairs meetings amid gunbattle in Pulwama, shutdown in Kulgam

Jaish ‘Distt Commdr’ among 2 militants killed; 6 ultras die in 3 days

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Feb 18: While Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, continued to preside over the review meeting of District Development Board in Pulwama, Police and security forces killed two of the top wanted militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad, including a “District Commander”, in a fierce gunbattle at Shankarpora village in the same district in south Kashmir today.

Authoritative sources told Early Times that Pulwama District Police and Rashtriya Rifles 55 Bn, 53 Bn and CRPF launched a cordon-and-search operation last evening immediately after receiving information that two of the dreaded militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad, namely Ehsan Bhai of Pakistan and Altaf Baba, were hiding at the residential house of one Ali Mohammad Ganai at Shankarpora village in Pulwama district. According to the information, Jaish militants were preparing to hold a coordination meeting with representatives of another militant outfit.

As soon as Police and security forces succeeded in evacuating inmates from all houses in the cordoned cluster and zeroed in on Ganai’s house, two militants opened fire. Rather than retaliating with the advance of darkness, troops maintained a tight cordon and kept the area under heavy search lights.

In the day-long gunbattle, amid Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s presiding over a review meeting of District Development Board Pulwama, both the holed up militants put up a tough resistance but were finally killed when troops brought down a particular portion of Ganai’s house. Contrary to the preliminary source information of Pulwama Police, they were identified as Sajjad Ahmed Mir of Rajpora and Jehangir Ahmed Hajjam of Ratnipora.

Describing both the slain militants as cadres of Jaish-e-Mohammad, officials claimed that Sajjad was a “District Ciommande”. They said that Jehangir Hajjam was more important and wanted on account of his involvement in a number of terrorist incidents in Awantipore area. They said that Jehangir had been coordinating planning and strategies of his organization with other guerrilla groups in Awantipore-Tral-Pulwama belt of south Kasghmir. One AK-47, one AK-74, two grenades and some quanitity of ammunition and incriminating material was claimed to have been seized alongwith dead bodies of two militants from the debris.

While senior district Police and civil officials remained present at CM’s meeting from 1030 hours to 1330 hours, DIG South Kashmir and senior Army officials supervised the operation.

With the death of two local militants in the gunbattle at Shankarpora (Pulwama), as many as six militants have been killed by Police and security forces in separate gunbattles in the last three days in Kashmir valley. Two of the top wanted local commanders of Lashkar-e-Toiba, namely Mohammad Ashraf Sheikh (“District Commander”) alias Ashraf Maulvi and Rauf Ahmed Bhat, got killed in a fierce gunbattle with Police and Army at Rampur (Kaimoh) Kulgam on February 15-16. Later, two more local militants, namely Salah-ud-din Wani and Zubair Ahmed, were eliminated by Police and armed forces in a different gunbattle at Kachhwa Maqam, Chandoosa, in Baramulla district on February 17th.

No collateral damage has been reported in these three operations even as on the second consecutive day today, Kulgam area observed shutdown against alleged Police and forces action on the funeral procession of the two slain militants the other day. Against near-total shutdown in Redwani, Khudwani, Kaimoh and adjoining villages, Chief Minister, his Cabinet colleagues and legislators, besides senior officials, held the review meeting of District Development Board at Kulgam in the afternoon.

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