MASOOD AZHAR NEPHEW AMONG 3 ULTRAS KILLED IN PULWAMA

The nephew of Jaish-eMuhammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar was among the three militants killed by the security forces in a gunbattle in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Monday.

Local news agency GNS said the killed militant was Jaish’s divisional commander Talha Rasheed and that the spokesperson of the terrorist group confirmed his identity to them.

The spokesperson also said two other militants killed in the encounter were divisional commander Muhammad Bhai, a nonlocal, and Waseem, a resident of Drubgam Pulwama, GNS said.

A soldier was also killed in the encounter.

The encounter took place at a time when Dineshwar Sharma, a former chief of the Intelligence Bureau who was tasked by the Union government to initiate talks in Kashmir over the threedecade-old insurgency, arrived in Srinagar.

A police spokesperson said the police along with Central Reserve Police Force and Rashtriya Rifles conducted an operation in the Kandi Aglar area under the jurisdiction of Rajpora police station following credible leads.

“While the cordon was being laid, the militants opened fire in which one army jawan and a civilian got injured. The army jawan attained martyrdom whereas the injured civilian was evacuated and shifted to the hospital. His condition is stated to be stable,” the spokesperson said.

Azhar, the chief of the UN-designated terrorist group, is accused of several terrorist strikes in India, the most recent being the attack on the airbase in Pathankot in January last year and the Uri army camp last September. Pakistani authorities took him into “protective custody” after last year’s terror attack in Pathankot, which was widely reported as an “arrest”.

SRINAGAR: MILITANT GROUP JAISH IDENTIFIED RASHEED AS THEIR DIVISIONAL COMMANDER AND THE NEPHEW OF THEIR CHIEF MASOOD AZHAR, SAID A NEWS AGENCY