Top Lashkar man killed in J& K gunbattle

A Lashkar- e- Tayyaba ( LeT) commander was killed in a brief fire fight with the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district on Wednesday evening.

The police sources said that the Army’s 55 Rashtriya Rifles, J& K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group ( SOG) and the Central Reserve Police Force ( CRPF) laid siege to Chakoora village of Pulwama’s Littar area on Wednesday evening to conduct searches after the militants opened fire at a security forces party without causing any casualties though.

Soon a gunfight broke out between the militants and the security forces in which Irfan Ahmed Sheikh, a local commander of the LeT, was killed, the sources said .

Also, while the

◗ While the encounter was underway intense clashes between surging crowds and security forces erupted in the area

encounter was underway intense clashes between surging crowds and security forces erupted in the area. The security forces fired dozens of teargas canisters to quell the protesters and stone pelting mobs, the witnesses said.

A police spokesman said that the brief encounter took place after a joint party of the security forces was attacked with rifle fire by militants at Chakoora. He claimed that the slain militant was the district commander of the LeT and had had a “long history of terror crime records for which several terror cases were registered against him.”