3 militants, cop killed in Srinagar firefight

Three militants and a counter-insurgency specialist of the Jammu and Kashmir police were killed in an encounter in Srinagar’s Panthachowk area overnight, the officials said here on Sunday.

This was the third such clash between the separatist militants and security forces in the Valley since Friday evening. Seven militants — four belonging to Lashkar-eTayyaba (LeT) and three to Hizb-ul-Mujahideen — and an Army jawan were killed earlier in two separate gunfights in southern Shopian and Pulwama districts, respectively.

Director General of Police Dilbag Singh said that J&K police lost one of its counter-insurgency experts in the killing of assistant sub-inspector Babu Singh in the encounter that took place in Panthachowk’s Dhobi Mohalla after three bikeborne militants made a failed attempt to attack a joint naka party of the police and CRPF and snatch the service weapon of one of security personnel at around 10 pm on Saturday.

He said that after the attack was foiled by alert

security personnel, the trio — one of them, as per reports, equipped with an AK assault rifle — abandoned their motorbike on the road and then ran into a nearby residential area which was encircled by reinforcements including those from the Army’s 20 Rashtriya Rifles.

One militant was also killed on Saturday night

itself. The other two were “neutralised” by security forces on Sunday.

The militants were identified as Saqib Bashir Khanday, Umar Tariq Bhat and Zubair Ahmed Sheikh, residents of nearby Drangbal, Pampore and, according to the police, affiliated with the proscribed terrorist organisation LeT.