NEW DELHI, May 6: Three terrorists including one claimed to be the “longest surviving extremist,” have been shot dead by the security forces in an encounter in a forest in Pahalgam area in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday reducing the threat to the Amarnath Yatra which is scheduled to start this year from June 30 after a gap of two years.
Pahalgam in Anantnag district, a tourist resort in south Kashmir, fall on the route of the Amarnath Yatra and serves as one of the base camps for the yatra for which the police called Friday’s operation as a major success to reduce the chances of possible terror attack on the pilgrims.
Of the three terrorists who were shot dead, Mohammad Ashraf Khan alias Ashraf Molvi, a top Hizbul Mujahideen commandant was one of the oldest surviving militants in the Valley. “Ashraf Molvi (one of oldest surviving terrorist of HM terror outfit) along with two other terrorists killed. Successful operation on yatra route is a major success for us,” J&K Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar tweeted.
Based on specific inputs about the presence of terrorists in the forest in Pahalgam, the security forces launched a cordon-and-search operation, a police officer said, adding the operation turned into an encounter after the hiding terrorists fired at the security forces.
Ashraf Molvi, a resident of Kokernag in south Kashmir’s Anantnag was in the list of the ten most wanted militant commanders released by the J-K police last year. He had joined Hizbul Mujahideen in 2013 and was active in different parts of south Kashmir for the last nine years. Police sources say while Khan was involved in several militant attacks, he was also instrumental in motivating the local youth to join the militant ranks in south Kashmir. Khan, who police sources say was in his late 40s, was categorized as an A++ militant in the police records.
The military operation started Friday morning, when a joint team of J-K Police and Army cordoned off the forest area at Sirchand Top of Batkoot in south Kashmir’s Pahalgam after inputs about the presence of militants in the area.
As the joint team of forces was zeroing in on the target, the militants in the area opened indiscriminate fire and tried to break the security cordon. The joint team of forces returned the fire leading to a gun battle that lasted several hours.
The gun battle ended Friday afternoon with the killing of the militants. Police sources say that the killed militants most likely belonged to the Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit. While the police have identified one of the slain militants as Khan, they are yet to ascertain the identity of his two associates.
Khan is the second top militant commander killed in a gunfight this year. On April 22, a top Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) commander, Mohammad Yousf Dar alias Yousuf Kantroo, was killed in a gunfight in north Kashmir’s Baramulla. Dar was a top Hizbul Mujahideen commander before switching over to Lashkar-e-Toiba.
(Manas Dasgupta)
