JeM man behind Sunjawan killed VALLEY ERUPTS OVER KILLING OF MILITANTS

A top Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) commander Mufti Waqas allegedly involved in the recent terror attack at Sunjawan Army Station in Jammu was killed in a brief firefight with the security forces in Awantipore area of Jammu and Kashmir's southern Pulwama district on Monday evening.

The officials said that gunfight erupted during an operation launched jointly by the Army's 50 Rashtriya Rifles, the J&K police's counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at Hatwar outside the highway town of Awantipore and about 35 kilometers south of summer capital Srinagar.

Defence spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said that the security forces laid siege to Hatwar following intelligence input about the presence in the village of the JeM commander Waqas who was a Pakistani national and was working as the outfit's 'Operational Commander'. Parts of Kashmir Valley erupted on Monday in the aftermath of the killing of two Lashkare-Tayabba (LeT) militants and four civilians in the Army’s retaliatory fire after a mobile checkpost came under a sneak attack in a remote village of southern Shopian district.

On Monday morning, two more bodies including those of a militant and a civilian were found near the scene of occurrence, raising the death toll to six.

The Army issued a statement saying that all those killed in the shootout were linked to militancy and the soldiers acted in selfdefence.