SRINAGAR: Banned terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen has appointed Gazi Haider as new operations chief for Kashmir to replace Riyaz Naikoo who was eliminated in an encounter by security forces on Wednesday
A Srinagar-based news agency, KNS quoted a statement of Hizb saying that a command council meet of Hizb was held under its chief commander Syed Salah-ud-din in PoK in which Gazi Haider was appointed as new operations chief for Kashmir.
Zaffar-ul-Islam was appointed as Deputy chief while Abu Tariq as Chief Military Advisor, the statement said.Naikoo alias Mohammad Bin Qasim had taken over Hizb command in Kashmir after his predecessor Yasin Yatoo alias Mehmood Ghaznavi was killed in August 2017. Hailing from Awantipora area, 35-year-old Naikoo was a mathematics school teacher before joining militancy in 2012. Naikoo’s body was not handed over this family but buried silently in a graveyard in central Kashmir’s Sonamarg by authorities in presence of magistrate and few family members.
After outbreak of Covid-19, authorities are not handing over bodies of local militants to their families for burial and instead burying them at graveyards in central and north Kashmir.