SRINAGAR: A Lashkar-e-Toiba commander and two militants involved in the July attack on Amarnath yatris have been killed in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, police said.
A fourth militant who managed to flee the encounter site on Monday but was not involved in the Amarnath attack was arrested from a maternity hospital with a Chinese pistol and live cartridges late at night.
The trio were killed in a gunfight that ensued after security personnel repulsed an attack on an army convoy on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway in Qazigund in Anantnag on Monday. A soldier too lost his life.
“After the militant firing in which a soldier was injured, security personnel laid siege around the area. The militants were trapped in a house and in the ensuing gunfight, three Lashkar militants and an army man were killed,” a police officer said.
The slain militants have been identified as Furqan, Abu Maviya and Yawar. They were involved in the July 10 attack on Amarnath yatris at Batingoo in south Kashmir, in which eight pilgrims were killed.
“Furqan and Maviya were foreign militants while Yawar Bashir was a local who joined LeT in February. Furqan had taken over as LeT commander for south Kashmir after his predecessor, Abu Ismail, was killed in an encounter,”a police spokesperson said.
J&K Director General of Police Shesh Pal Vaid said with the killing of Abu Ismail earlier and now Abu Maviya, Furqan and Yawar, all but one member of the group that attacked the Amarnath yatris had been wiped out.
A police spokesman said the militant arrested from hospital, Rashid Ahmed Allai, had been missing from home for two days and was suspected to have joined the Lashkar.
“Preliminary investigations have established that he was with the three militants killed in the encounter and managed to escape from the site. Consequently, he took shelter at the hospital in Anantnag with the help of one of his associates. He, along with his associates, were intending to snatch weapons from the policemen by attacking them,” the spokesman said. He said further investigations were underway to unearth the conspiracy behind the attack.
Two militants, hailing from Hawoora and Sangam areas of south Kashmir, have surrendered before security forces, police said. Earlier, two others, including footballer-turned-militant Majid Khan, had similarly shunned militancy.