4 Jaish militants killed in Pulwama gunfight
While three of the slain militants belonging to Jash-e-Mohammad were locals, the fourth one, according to the police, was a Pakistani national.Four militants were killed in a fire fight with government forces on Saturday in Rajpora area of Pulwama district, and 32 people were injured when forces used shotgun metal pellets in a bid to scare them away from disrupting the anti-militant operation.
While three of the slain militants belonging to Jash-e-Mohammad were locals, the fourth one, according to the police, was a Pakistani national.
The encounter, which is third in the past eight days in the district, started hours after the same militant group, according to an army official, attacked a CRPF facility in Bellow village, around 2 kms from the actual site of the encounter.
A police official said that on Friday night a joint team of army men, SOG and CRPF personnel ring -fenced Bon Hajin hamlet of Rajpora area following the definite inputs about the presence of militants in the area and launched a search operation.
He said as the search operation was in progress, a group of militants who had taken refuge in a residential house opened fire on the forces at around 4 am.
The fire was retaliated soon at full throttle, leading to an encounter, said the official.
He said that the fire fight lasted for about seven hours and ended with the killing of all four Jaish-e-Mohammad militants.
The official identified the three local slain militants as MuzamilNabi Dar of Rahmoo, Pulwama; WasimAkramWani of Ticken, Pulwama and MuzamilNazirBhat of Prichoo, Pulwama. The fourth one was identified by an official as Haris.
According to local residents, forces at around 1 am laid a siege around a cluster of residential houses in the village and while they closed in on the house they asked the family to come out.
“As the family rushed out the house owner was asked if the militants had taken refuge in his house. He responded positively,” said a local resident wishing not to be named.
He said soon forces fired upon the house from a neighbouring dwelling. However, he said, that the militants, after initial exchange of fire, took refuge in an adjacent house that was under construction.
“The militants engaged the forces for several hours before they were killed,” he said.
A police statement said the deceased were wanted “for their complicity in a series of terror crimes including attack on security establishments and civilian atrocities”.
The statement read: “Arms and ammunition including rifles were recovered from the site of encounter. All these materials have been taken in the case records for further investigation and probe their complicity in other terror cases.” It asked civilians to stay away from encounter sites.
CLASHES
Barely an hour after the cracking of dawn, the local residents, according to a police spokesperson, started drawing close to the site of gun battle and began hampering the operation by hurling stones at the forces.
The forces responded by firing shot gun ammunition causing minor injuries to many protesters.
An official at a medical facility in Rajpora said that they received 28 injured persons. He said that while one of them had sustained a bullet injury in his hand, all others had suffered pellet injuries.
Medical Superintendent PulwamaDr Rashid Parra said they received 7 injured persons, three of whom had been referred from Community Health Centre Rajpora.
“We sent four of the injured to the SMHS Hospital in Srinagar as they needed advanced treatment,” Parra said.
FUNERAL
As the bodies of the slain militants arrived in their respective native villages, thousands of mourners converged there to participate in their last rites. All the three militants were interred in their ancestral grave yards after multiple rounds f funeral prayers. The villages reverberated with pro-freedom and pro-Islam slogans.
