Teen dies of pellet injuries in Kashmir
Srinagar: Sixteen-year-old Younis Ahmed Sheikh died of pellet inuries after security forces clashed with mobs protesting the killing of three militants, reportedly associated with Al Qaeda’s India cell, in an encounter in J&K’s Tral on Wednesday.
Three militants reportedly associated with “Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind”, AlQaida’s India cell headed by Zakir Rashid Bhat alias Zakir Musa, were on Wednesday killed in a brief gunfight with the security forces in Tral area of Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district.
The killing of militants triggered protests in the area. The security forces fired teargas canisters and shotgun pellets to quell protesters and stone-pelting mobs, injuring over a dozen, mainly youngsters. One of them, identified as 16-year-old Younis Ahmed Sheikh, was rushed to Srinagar’s SMHS hospital where he succumbed of multiple pellet injuries in the chest, doctors said.
The officials said that the troops from Army’s 42 Rashtriya Rifles along with the men from J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group and Central Reserve Police Force’s 180 battalion launched an operation in Gulab Bagh, a suburb of Tral town, 43km south of here, around noon after learning about the presence of militants. “The terrorists hiding in the area were asked to surrender but they refused and opened fire, triggering an encounter in which all three of them were killed”, said a
16-year-old Younis Ahmed Sheikh, was rushed to Srinagar’s SMHS hospital where he succumbed of multiple pellet injuries in the chest, doctors said
defence spokesman here.
The slain militants have been identified as Ashfaq Ahmed Butt, Zahid Ahmed Butt and Muhammad Ashraf Dar — all local Kashmiris.
The police said that two AK 47 rifles and one pistol were recovered from the encounter site. It said that the militants were involved in a number of terror strikes.
These included causing grievous injuries to a police head-constable Abdul Gani Butt, torturing a special police officer, footage of which was uploaded on Facebook and other social networking sites, a grenade attack on the CRPF and several similar attacks in south Kashmir and a firing incident in which three persons were injured in Tral.
The police sources said that that the trio was associated with Hizb-ulMujahedin but had recently switched their allegiance to Zakir Musa, its former senior commander who was last month named as the head of al-Qaida’s newly launched India cell “Ansar Ghuzwat-ulHind”.