3 militants killed in Shopian encounter

Srinagar: Three militants recruited into Al-Badr outfit recently were killed in a gunfight with the security forces in a remote village of J&K’s Shopian district on Thursday. A fourth militant trapped with them surrendered in response to an appeal from the forces.

Srinagar: Three militants recruited into Al-Badr outfit recently were killed in a gunfight with the security forces in a remote village of Jammu and Kashmir’s southern district of Shopian on Thursday. However, a fourth militant trapped with them after the security forces launched a cordon-and-search operation at Kanigam surrendered in response to an appeal from the uniformed men, the police said. Inspector-general of police (Kashmir range) Vijay Kumar said that “repeated appeals” were made to all the four militants to lay down their weapons and surrender before the security forces but only one of them responded and three others who refused were killed in the subsequent encounter. The police identified the slain as Danish Mir, Muhammad Umar Bhat and Zaid Bashir Reshi-all residents of Shopian. It added that the trio had after turning down the surrender offer opened fire and also lobbed a hand grenade towards the search party, triggering the encounter. The officials said that after the J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) along with the Army’s 44 Rashtriya Rifles and the 178th Battalion of the CRPF laid siege to Kanigam and the presence of four Al-Badr militants in the village was established late Wednesday night, the families of all the trapped militants were brought to the site in a bid to persuade them to surrender.