4 terrorists shot dead in gunfight

SRINAGAR: Four terrorists were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces at Pinjora in Jammu & Kashmir’s Shopian district on Monday, police said and added the gunbattle was triggered after security forces launched an operation in the village. The encounter happened 12km from Reban village, where five terrorists were killed in a separate counter-insurgency operation on Sunday.

“...Four militants were killed in the operation which ended on Monday afternoon at Pinjora,” said inspector general of police (Kashmir). He added the nine terrorists killed in Shopian since Sunday belonged to the Hizbul Mujahideen and both the operations led to no collateral damage.

The house where the four terrorists were holed up in Pinjora was damaged in Monday’s gunbattle. The Jammu & Kashmir police have not revealed the identities of the nine terrorists but they are believed to be from Shopian and the neighbouring Pulwama district.

The fresh gunbattle is the latest in a series of encounters since March in which dozens of terrorists, including Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo, have been killed. Naikoo carried a bounty of ~12 lakh on his head and was killed on May 6.

J&K police chief Dilbag Singh said 22 terrorists, including six commanders, have been killed over the past two weeks in nine operations. He added that this year, 88 terrorists have been killed in around 36 operations.

“Six top commanders were involved in the attacks and killings of innocent civilians, police, and security forces. They all had a long list of crimes. They also killed a young SPO [special police officer] Khushboo...”

He said out of the 22, 18 were killed in three districts of Pulwama, Kulgam, and Shopian. Singh added the rest were gunned down in Rajouri and Poonch. “Another terrorist who infiltrated was killed in Kalakote sector. This shows that Pakistan and its agencies are trying to infiltrate terrorists from all sides.”

Singh said an improvised explosive device (IED) attack was foiled along the Jammu-Srinagar highway on May 28.

“The person Abdul Rehman alias Fauji Bhai, who was affiliated with HM [Hizbul Mujahideen] and developed this IED, was also killed,” he said.