Thousands attend last rites of slain militant commander Zakir Musa in south Kashmir’s Tral

Thousands of people on Friday participated in the funeralprayers of slain militant commander Zakir Musa at his native Noorpora villageof Tral in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district.

Reports and witnesses said that thousands of people fromvarious parts of Pulwama district reached Noorpora despite restrictions andrains to participate in the last rites of Musa who was killed by the securityforces in a gunfight last night.

   

An official said that the gunfight broke out after a jointteam of the army and the SOG launched a cordon-and-search operation in Dadsaravillage last evening amid intelligence reports about the presence of one of theKashmir’s most wanted militant commander Zakir Musa.

He said that Musa turned down offer to surrender and firedUBGL grenades and opened fire which was retaliated leading to a gunfight.

The gunfight raged for several hours and ended early Friday,resulting in death of Musa.

Musa, who hailed from Noorpora area of Tral, first joinedthe Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit in 2013 and went on to become close aideof Hizb commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani. Both worked together to strengthen theoutfit and within years the outfit rose to prominence, recruiting plenty ofyoung and educated youth in their ranks.

After Wani’s killing in July 2016 Musa took over thecommand. However, he hit the headlines in the summer of 2017 when in a videomessage he declared fighting for caliphate and not for joining Pakistan orcreating an independent state. He also threatened Hurriyat leadership of direconsequences who he thought were a hurdle in the establishment of caliphate.

However, his views were not endorsed by Hizb leadershipfollowing which he parted ways and formed his own outfit Ansar Ghazwat Ul Hind.

Musa came from a well off family. His father Abdul RashidBhat is a retired assistant executive engineer. His elder brother Shakir RashidBhat is an orthopedic surgeon and his sister Shaheena Rashid Bhat is a banker.

In 2012 he left for Chandigarh to pursue engineering at RamDev Jindal college but left it midway and instead joined militancy.

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