Main accused in Bukhari murder LeT’s Naveed Jatt killed in Budgam

SRINAGAR: Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Naveed Jatt, the prime suspect in the murder of journalist Shujaat Bukhari, was among two militants killed in a gunfight with security forces in central Kashmir’s Budgam district on Wednesday, the police said.

Jatt, a Pakistani national with links to Mumbai attacker Ajmal Kasab, is believed to have crossed over into India in 2012 and was among the three people named in the June killing of Bukhari in Srinagar. He was arrested in 2014. In February this year, he escaped when he was taken to a hospital for treatment, with gunmen killing two policemen in the process.

Bukhari, the 50-year-old editor of Rising Kashmir newspaper, was assassinated outside his office by three men on a motorcycle as he was getting into a car.

Jatt, 22, and all of five-feet tall, was also involved in the killing of an assistant sub-inspector, the murders of CRPF personnel and behind several grenade attacks and bank robberies, police said.

Jatt is believed to have been close to Lashkar chief Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi who orchestrated the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai.

At a madrasa in Pakistan, Jatt trained with Kasab, the only terrorist caught alive during a 60-hour siege in Mumbai 10 years ago who was subsequently hanged for his role in the carnage that killed 166 people, the official said.

Jatt died in the course of a gunfight that started when security forces launched an operation in the Chattergam area around 3 am after receiving information about the presence of two to three militants there.

The operation, which lasted eight hours, came about a week after security personnel in south Kashmir’s Anantnag killed six militants, including one believed to have links to Bukhari’s murder.

The operation triggered protests by locals who threw stones at security personnel.The authorities blocked mobile internet in Budgam and Pulwama districts, and suspended railway services between Budgam and Banihal in the Jammu area.

Director general of police Dilbag Singh said the police could have “gathered more information about other people involved in the killing of Bukhari’’ if Jatt had been caught alive. “We will approach Pakistan through competent authorities and ask them to claim the body,” he said.

Singh said in recent weeks security personnel had shot dead about two dozen militants in south Kashmir, considered a hotbed of militancy. He said fresh recruitment of militants, too, had come down.