Lashkar commander among 2 militants killed in Pulwama

Srinagar, October 14
Two Lashkar-e-Toiba militants, including a top commander of the group, were killed in a gunfight in Pulwama in south Kashmir on Saturday morning.
The gunfight erupted in the wee hours when joint teams of police, army and CRPF launched an operation at Litter village, 35 km from here, after an input about the militant presence.
Later, a youth was killed and over a dozen injured in the clashes in Pulwama that erupted after the killing of the militants.

“As the suspected houses were zeroed in on, the hiding militants fired at the forces to break the cordon. The fire was returned and in the gunfight two Lashkar militants were killed,” a police officer said.
Army identified one of the slain militants as Waseem Shah, the district commander of the group in Shopian.
Shah, 23, believed to be the main architect of unrest last year in south Kashmir and also known as ‘Abu Osama Bhai’, was killed at Litter, a place considered a safe haven for militants. This is the first counter-insurgency operation in Litter area in four years.
Jammu and Kashmir Police have been tracking the movements of Shah, who is considered as the ‘don of Heff’, another traditional stronghold of militants in south Kashmir’s Shopian district.
He was found at a hideout at Litter and police and its special operation group team cordoned off the area, police said.
Shah, along with his bodyguard Nisar Ahmed Mir, made an attempt to flee the area but could not penetrate the cordon which had been strengthened by the presence of CRPF and Army, they said.
Shah, who was wanted in various terror-related cases, was killed along with Naseer, another local boy who had joined militancy in May this year.
A college dropout, Shah, a resident of Heff-Shrimal in Shopian, joined militancy in 2014 and was considered as the ‘chief architect’ of last year’s unrest in various parts of south Kashmir.
Born in a middle-class family of Gul Mohammed Shah, who ran his fruit business, Shah was an active supporter of Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group since his school days and had doubled up as a courier boy for the outfit, police said.
Of late, Shah, who carried a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head, was recruiting fresh cadres for the militant outfit.
He had been involved in various attacks on security forces in south Kashmir, police said.