3 ultras killed in Jammu and Kashmir encounter

SRINAGAR: Three Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militants were killed in a fire fight with the security forces in Tral area of Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district on Sunday.

The police identified the slain men as Umer Fayaz Lone alias Hamad Khan, Faizan Hamid and Adil Bashir Mir alias Abu Dujana, all local Kashmiris. The police said that the fighting broke out earlier during the day when the security forces laid siege to a hamlet of Gujjars called Gujjar Basti in Gulsha-npora area of Tral on “a credible input” about the presence of militants there. “During the search operation, the hiding terrorists fired on the search party. The fire was retaliated, leading to an encounter in which three terrorists were killed whose bodies were retrie-ved,” a statement issued by the police said.