Srinagar: Three Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists have been killed by security forces after a brief shootout in the forests of Jammu and Kashmir's Tral, police said Saturday morning.
Vijay Kumar, IGP Kashmir, said one of the terrorist killed was Wakeel Shah, who was involved in the killing of BJP leader Rakesh Pandita. The identity of the other terrorists is still being ascertained, and that search operations were being carried out in the area. Two AK-47 rifles, one SLR and other warlike stores have been recovered from the three terrorists neutralised in the Tral encounter.
The firefight erupted in the upper reaches of forest area of Nagbaeran Tral, Awantipora, after a joint team of the police and the army cordoned off the area and launched a search operation on the basis of specific information about the presence of terrorists.
As the security forces zeroed in on the spot where terrorists were hiding they came under a heavy volume of fire.
This is the second joint operation between the Army and the police in the past 24 hours, and third since Thursday.
On Friday two terrorists were killed in Khrew near Srinagar. The police said they were part of a hit squad involved in the murders of civilians in south Kashmir. A day earlier, a junior oficer of the army was killed during a gunfight with terrorists in Rajouri district. A terrorist was also killed in that incident.
Officials have said there is spurt in terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir in the past few months, including the targeting of political leaders and party workers.
Also on Thursday, terrorists barged into the home of Ghulam Hassan Lone, a political worker with the J&K Apni party, and shot him dead.
The BJP, which has little influence in Kashmir, has claimed it has been singled out in these attacks. On Wednesday, Altaf Thakur, the party's J&K spokesperson, said that 23 party members had been attacked or killed. This was after Javid Dar, the party's in-charge for Kulgam district, was shot dead.
