Srinagar: Two militants including Basit Ahmed Dar, a top commander of proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) on whose head the NIA had put a bounty of `10 lakh, were killed in a gunfight with the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Kulgam district on Tuesday.
Inspector general of police (Kashmir range) V.K. Birdi said that Dar, who went missing from his home in Kulgam’s Redwani area in 2021 to join the militants’ ranks, was involved in as many as eighteen cases of terrorist violence. “These included attacks on security forces and the members of minority communities in Srinagar and south Kashmir districts,” he added.
The IGP said, “His killing is a big achievement for the security forces. He was also the mastermind behind a spat of civilian killings”.
The police said that Dar was active as the head of a group of militants associated with The Resistance Front, an offshoot of the LeT.
The fighting between the militants and the security forces broke out in Redwani Payeen village of Kulgam early on Tuesday and continued till around 1 pm. The security forces had moved in the village on receiving information about the presence of militants. Soon the two sides engaged in a fierce gunfight which culminated with the killing of Dar and his accomplice, the police said.
The police said that the J&K police and other uniformed forces are taking all necessary steps to ensure peace in all the three Lok Sabha constituencies in the Kashmir Valley which will go to voting in the fourth, fifth and sixth phases of the elections. “We won’t allow anyone to disrupt elections or the peaceful atmosphere in Kashmir,” he was quoted as saying by local news agency GNS. The officer added that the identity of the second militant killed in the gunfight is being ascertained.
Meanwhile, the J&K police in a statement issued here said that the immovable properties of seven “terror handlers” based in Pakistan were attached by it in the Valley’s northwestern Baramulla district on Tuesday.
“These properties worth millions of rupees were attached after the Baramulla police obtained relevant orders from the Additional Sessions Court,” the police said.
