‘8 commanders among 91 militants killed since January in Kashmir’

Top officials on Saturday asserted that the strategy to conduct “pre-dawn anti-militancy operations” in Kashmir has worked well.

They said that as many as 91 militants, including top eightcommanders of Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind,were killed in “well-coordinated operations” since January this year. 

   

According to a security expert, a joint and coordinatedstrategy by Police, Army and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to conductanti-militancy operations was framed in early January this year. “And with thehelp of increased human intelligence it was decided to launch pre-dawnoperations,” he said.

“We wanted to keep a surprise element for militants bycatching them at a time when they would expect us the least. And midnightcordons were the best thing to zero in on the militant hideouts,” said asecurity official, who is part of the counter-insurgency grid. 

“Ninety per cent of the operations were clean and conductedin a most professional manner where there was no collateral damage,” theofficer, privy to the figures of slain militants revealed. “The reason toconduct midnight operations and to conclude the same by pre-dawn timing was toavoid confrontation with the protesting youth, who otherwise would get closerto the encounter sites. In most of the anti-militancy operations, militantswere caught totally unaware of the cordon, a big advantage for the forces,” heclaimed.

“The slain commanders include the ones who were part of thedeadly suicide attack on the security forces at Lethpora, Pulwama on 14 February this year. The attack left 40CRPF men dead. Today, there is no Jaish commander active in Kashmir. There maybe some Jaish militants active in south and north Kashmir parts who are alreadyon the radar,” he said.

The officer said that “specialty of the operations conductedby the security forces” this year was apart from the local militants, all theforeign militants were killed in the hinterland. “No foreign militant waskilled on LoC or while crossing over,” he said.

Another security expert said that with the killing of topleadership of Hizb, Jaish, Lashkar and now AGH, a major dent has been caused tothe local militant recruitment, first time since 2017. This year, 40 youthjoined various militant ranks and the figure is lowest since 2017.

“Among the new recruits, five were killed, three apprehendedand four returned,” he said.

The officer said that among the surviving militantcommanders, Hizb’s chief operational commander Riyaz Naikoo is the only oneleft now as far as the militant leadership is concerned.

He, however, refused to divulge the number of activemilitants in Kashmir at present.

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