Mobile phones, internet suspended
30 injured in clashes, one critical
Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, May 6: Hizbul Mujahideen’s de facto chief and one of Kashmir’s most wanted militants Reyaz Naikoo was today killed by security forces in his village in Pulwama district, prompting authorities to suspend mobile phones and mobile internet across the Valley.
The 35-year-old maths teacher turned militant, with a Rs 12 lakh bounty on his head, had successfully escaped the dragnet for eight years. But his luck finally ran out when he was shot dead after a five-hour gunbattle in restive Pulwama’s Beighpora village, about 40 km from here, police said.
Security forces engaged with militants in two simultaneous gunbattles in Pulwama, one in Sharshalli village where two unidentified militants were killed and the other in Beighpora in Awantipora where they finally put down Naikoo who was holed up with another militant.
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His accomplice attempted to escape by charging towards security forces and opening indiscriminate fire but was also killed in the encounter, which led to clashes as people started pelting stones at security personnel.
Two people sustained bullet injuries but were taken to hospital and were stable, officials said.
The four bodies would not be handed over to the families in accordance with the new protocol in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic and would be buried by police, they said.
The gunning down of the Hizbul Mujahideen commander, a major breakthrough in the fight against terror, comes three days after eight security personnel, including two Army officers Colonel Ashutosh Sharma and Major Anuj Sood, were killed in Handwara on May 3.
The incidents of violence come amid a lockdown in the Valley and elsewhere in the country to curtail the spread of COVID-19 and also during the month of Ramzan.
Giving details of the successful operation, officials said security forces zeroed in on Naikoo’s hideout on Tuesday. But instead of initiating an immediate operation, they first fortified their cordon around the area and plugged all escape routes so he could not escape as he had done thrice earlier.
Only then did they begin the actual operation to flush out the terrorist, who was categorised as A++ (top militant) and was known to be tech savvy, frequently posting audio and video clips on social media to motivate youth towards militancy and draw in more recruits to his outfit.
At dawn, Army units were pushed along with the special operations group of Jammu and Kashmir Police, the officials said. A gunfight broke out after Naikoo and his accomplice fired at the security personnel.
CRPF and police forces also laid an outer cordon to keep the public away from the encounter site.
Security forces also checked the railway line along the village following reports that he had dug a tunnel from his hideout to help him escape. This, however, turned out to be a rumour, said a senior police officer from ground zero.
A police spokesperson said earlier in the morning that a top terrorist commander along with an accomplice was trapped in an encounter but did not reveal his identity. Later in the day, officials disclosed that the man in their sights was Naikoo, the man they had been looking for for eight years.
The bespectacled Naikoo became the de facto chief of the banned Hizbul Mujahideen after the death of Burhan Wani, the poster boy of militancy in the Valley, in July 2016.
Naikoo, who had 11 FIRs against him, masterminded the revival of the Hizbul Mujahideen and often released videos and audios with pro-Pakistan and separatist propaganda, officials said. He also executed a series of attacks on security forces, including policemen, and civilians.
He is alleged to have brutally killed civilians after branding them as informers. He also looted orchard owners and farmers to collect funds for his outfit besides collecting cash from illicit cultivation of opium and ‘bhang’ in south Kashmir, officials said.
His outfit figured in a narco trade case in Jammu where a huge sum of sale proceeds was transferred to one of his contacts.
In the separate encounter at Sharshali village, two militants, who are yet to be identified, were gunned down in an encounter with security forces.
Acting on a tip-off about the presence of militants in the village, security forces launched a cordon and search operation. It turned into an encounter after militants opened fire towards security forces’ positions, officials said.
The forces retaliated, killing the two militants, they said.
Inspector General of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Vijay Kumar, told Excelsior that the killing of Naikoo is a major success for security forces as he was involved in planning attacks and recruitment of youth into militancy. “This is a second major success for security forces in last 10 days after the killing of Ansarul Gazwatul Hind chief”, he said.
The troops pressed excavators into services to dig up a portion of railway track in the village over suspicions of an underground hideout. They found a long tunnel leading to a house in the village where he was hiding.
Kumar said that in the morning they established contact with the Hizb commander who was hiding in a house. In 2018, Naikoo-led Hizb militants kidnapped 11 family members of policemen in south Kashmir, prompting the police to release his father, Asadullah Mir, from their custody.
The police had picked up Mir from his residence a day after militants had killed four policemen in Shopian. Later, in an audio message, Riyaz warned the police of dangerous consequences if the relatives of militants were not released.
In 2010, when the death of a teenager from Srinagar, Tufail Ahamad Mattoo, due to a teargas shell fired by a policeman to quell protests triggered unrest, he was one of those who were arrested from across Kashmir for holding protests.
He was booked under the Public Safety Act and when he walked out of jail in 2012. He spent a few months at home, before informing his family that he planned to apply for higher studies outside Jammu and Kashmir.
On May 23 that year, Naikoo left home to meet his friends. When he did not return for some days the family started searching for him. They ultimately gave up when the police informed them that Naikoo had joined militancy.
Kumar said that he was responsible for attacks on security forces and Police men and killing of civilians by branding them police and security forces informers.
He said that he was involved in the killing of Haji Ghulam Mohammad Dar father of a Sarpanch at Dogripora in 2014, firing on police bus near Bhatpora Tokena, killings of Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din Dar, Javaid Akbar Khanday of Khandaypora, of a Police man Ashiq Hussain Mir at Padgampora crossing, kidnapping of constable Naseer Ahmad, looting of nine weapons from the residence of former MLA Wachi, killing of six migrant labour in Kulgam and truck drivers and fruit traders post August 5.
An official said that at least 30 people were injured as stone pelting clashes broke out place at around a dozen places in Kashmir after the killing of Naikoo. Three youth with bullet injuries and 11 with pellet injuries were admitted to hospitals in Srinagar for treatment. All of them were injured in Pulwama in clashes that broke out during the encounter.
Two bunkers -one each of Police and CRPF- were also torched by the protesters in Pulwama earlier in the day.
Bodies of the all four militants were taken to Sonmarg where they were buried this evening after their DNA samples were taken.
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