Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Feb 24: One militant of Hizbul Mujahideen was killed in fierce gun battle with security forces in South Kashmir’s Shopian district this evening while operation to eliminate another militant is going on.
Superintendent of Police Shopian, Altaf Ahmad Khan, told Excelsior that they got specific information about presence of two militants of Hizbul Mujahideen in Hef Shermal village in South Kashmir’s district of Shopian this evening.
Khan said that after receiving inputs Army’s 55 Rashtriya Rifles, police’s Special Operation Group (SOG) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) cordoned off Hef Shermal village and launched searches.
“As we were conducting searches, the militants hiding in a house fired upon the troops triggering a gun battle”, said Khan. He said that initially police and Army didn’t fire as people were still inside the village.
“We allowed people to reach safer places before we targeted the militants. The firing continued for several hours and one of the militants is dead but his body has not been retrieved yet”, the SP said.
Khan said that the operation has been put on hold for the night and cordon around the village has been strengthened to stop the militants from fleeing the cordon. He said that despite torrential rains the security forces are maintaining tight vigil so that the militant may not escape.
Sources said that the security forces had information about the presence of two to three militants inside the house of one Ghulam Hassan Paddar of village Hef Shermal. They said that two or three militants who were inside the house included Saddam Hussain Paddar nephew of the house owner Ghulam Hassan Paddar.
Sources said that one militant who was killed in the gun battle and whose body is lying in the house is Ashiq Hussain Dar son of Ghulam Hussain Dar of village Tarkwangam Shopian.
Dar, 23, joined Hizbul Mujahideen in August last year and was post graduate. Paddar, 19, joined the HM in September last year and is 10th standard school dropout.
In Shopian district last year 10 youth had joined militancy and out of which one each was arrested and killed in security forces operations.
Today’s gun battle is second in last four days in Kashmir valley. On February 21, security forces killed two militants of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in Rafiabad area of Baramulla district. Both the militants were Pakistanis and had infiltrated in 2013 and were active in the area for past two years.
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