Top Hizb militant who helped Pak terror commander flee killed in Valley

SRINAGAR:A top Hizbul Mujahideen militant who helped Pakistani terrorist commander Naveed Jutt escape from a hospital last year while he was in police custody was killed in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Tuesday in an encounter that also left one soldier dead and another injured.

The encounter took place when army soldiers and the special operation group of Jammu and Kashmir police were conducting a search in Pulwama’s Ratnipora late Monday night after receiving information about the presence of a group of militants in the village, the police said.

As the troops came close to the house where the militants were holed up, the men inside opened fire, triggering the gunfight that continued through the night.

The militant killed in the operation, which ended on Tuesday afternoon, was identified as Hilal Ahmad Rather of Behgambagh Kakapora, located five kilometres from the encounter site.

Police said that he was affiliated to the Hizbul Mujahideen and had joined militant ranks in 2018.

The slain army soldier was identified as Havaldar Baljeet Singh of Karnal, Haryana, who was part of the 50 Rashtriya Rifles unit.

Rather was involved in the escape of Jutt from SMHS Hospital in Srinagar in February last year, a police spokesman said. The militants who helped Jutt escape shot dead two policemen who were escorting Jutt, who was finally killed in November on the outskirts of Srinagar.

So far this year, 26 militants have been killed in encounters, mainly in south Kashmir. ALLAHABAD: Kumbh Mela 2019, billed as the world’s largest religious gathering, is vying for a place in the Guinness World Records for the biggest sanitation and waste disposal mechanism, the largest traffic and crowd management plan, and the biggest painting exercise of public sites for any fair, according to officials.

The Guinness World Records, which was known as the Guinness Book of Records since its inception in 1955 until 2000, is a reference book published annually, listing world records of human achievements and the extremes of natural world.

According to the officials, Prayagraj Mela Authority is planning to invite officials of Guinness World Records to the “Sangam City.” As four of the six main bathing festivals [shahi snan] of the fair have been conducted successfully with around 15 crore pilgrims taking a holy dip, officials are confident that the mela will make it to the Guinness World Records.

“We will invite the officials of Guinness World Records to Kumbh Mela area on three days — February 17, February 24 and March 2 — so that they may have a firsthand experience of the fair and witness the preparations that were made to ensure its safe and smooth conduct,” said Ashish Goel, Prayagraj divisional commissioner and chairman of Prayagraj Mela Authority. “Sanitation arrangements, traffic and crowd management plan, and the ‘Paint My City’ initiative are the prime areas which we are being projected for Guinness World Records,” he added.

THE MILITANT KILLED IN THE OPERATION WAS IDENTIFIED AS HILAL AHMAD RATHER OF BEHGAMBAGH KAKAPORA