2 Hizb militants killed, civilian wounded in Tral gunfight

Two Hizb-ul-Mujahedeen militants were killed and a civilianwounded in a pre-dawn gunfight in southern Tral area on Tuesday.

This was the first gunfight in a span of 13 years in mainTral town, though encounters between militants and forces take place frequentlyin its rural and hilly belts.

   

Officials said that following “specific” inputs aboutpresence of militants in Tral Payeen, a joint search operation was launched bythe army’s 42 Rashtriya Rifles, special operations group of J&K police andcentral reserve police force (CRPF) at around 8pm (Monday).

Though the forces had cordoned off the area, launcheddoor-to-door searches and put on lights, no contact was established till 3.30amamid speculations that the militants might have escaped taking advantage ofdarkness. 

“The contact was established at 3.30am when both militants,who had taken shelter in a house, came out in a bid to escape. This led to anexchange of fire,” an official source said.

He said one of the two militants was killed instantly whilethe other one, who was pushed back, engaged the forces in a fierce firefight.

However, the source said, at around 7am, the forces setablaze the house.

“As the house went up in flames, he (second militant) cameout making the last attempt to escape but was gunned down.”

The bodies of both the militants, lying in the premises ofthe destroyed house, were later retrieved and searches launched to look formore militants, if any.

The operation was finally called off at 9am, the sourcesaid.

As the forces were retracting from the area, people clashedwith them.

Groups of youth pelted stones on the forces personnel, who,in turn, lobbed teargas shells to chase them away.

The house which was completely reduced to ashes in thefirefight belonged to Ghulam Qadir Naik.

Naik’s 45-year-old brother, Farooq Ahmad—whose house is inthe same compound—sustained a bullet injury in the initial exchange of fire andis undergoing treatment.

He was evacuated to sub-district hospital Tral, where fromhe was referred to the general specialty SMHS hospital in Srinagar forspecialised treatment.

“He had sustained a bullet injury in his thigh,” a doctor atSDH Tral told Greater Kashmir.

One of the two slain militants was identified as Irfan AhmadRather alias Abu Talib and hailed from Sharifabad locality, the native place ofslain Hizb commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani.

He was a student of class 12 and had joined Hizb in Julylast year.

His funeral prayers were offered at a local Eidgah and hewas laid to rest next to the Wani’s grave at the martyrs’ graveyard.

“He (Irfan) was a class 10 student when Burhan was killed,”said one of the mourners.

The other slain militant was identified as Adfar Fayaz aliasAbu Zarar of Gulshapora village of Tral. He had joined the militant ranks inNovember 2017 and was a commerce graduate.

Both the militants, according to the police, were closeassociates of top Hizb commander Umar Fayaz Lone alias Hamad Khan—active in theranks since 2016.

Adfar was listed as category B militant while Irfan ascategory C militant by the police.

“The duo was involved in conspiring and executing severalattacks and were wanted by the law for their complicity in a series of crimesincluding an attack on security establishments and civilian atrocities (sic),”a police spokesman said in a statement.

Arms and ammunition, including rifles, were recovered fromthe site of the encounter, he said.

Earlier, the bodies of the militants were taken to policestation Tral for identification but were not handed over to their families tilllate evening, triggering protests.

“It is already 5.30pm and the police are yet to hand over usthe bodies despite being identified in the forenoon,” said a youth ShafatAhmad.

Sensing trouble, the police later handed over the bodies totheir families for the last rites, even as people in large numbers were waitingat their native places to have their last glimpse.

Multiple rounds of funeral prayers were offered for theslain militants before they were laid to rest amid pro-freedom sloganeering.

Pertinently, the last such gunfight in Tral town took placein 2005 when two Hizb militants Manzoor Ahmad Wani and Ghulam Qadir Khan werekilled in an area not far away from Tuesday’s encounter site, said a localresident, Muhammad Shafi.

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