Srinagar, July 31: Stating that their mission towards ending violence has been seeing some degree of progress and success, General Officer Commanding 15 Corps, Lt General D P Pandey on Saturday said that killing of Jaish-e-Muhammad militant has brought closure to Pulwama (suicide) incident.
“Saifullah alias Adnan alias Lamboo was active for the last few years in south Kashmir. The importance of the killing of Saifullah is two-fold. Firstly, it brings closure to Pulwama incident because he was one of the masterminds for having trained a local youth Adil who eventually blew himself up in an IED attack. Ever since, he has been responsible to continue to train people in making IED and deployment of IEDs against the security forces,” Lt Gen Pandey told a hurriedly called news conference here.
“The second very important facet of this neutralisation is that he has been also responsible to recruit young locals by brainwashing them, by carrying out identification, selective identification, thereafter radicalising them and giving them weapons and putting them as face of overall strategy of our inimical agencies which are operating from across. Thus, when these recruits were taken out, neutralised, it brought a face as if the entire movement is indigenised and a local movement which is not so.”
The top Army General who was flanked by IGP Kashmir and General Officer Commanding Victor Force, Major General Rashim Bali said that it was most heartening that in the last few days “our mission towards ending violence has been seeing some degree of progress and success.”
“We find greater amount of information coming from the locals, from the people who, because of the improved security environment, are stepping forward to identify and bring forth closure to such notorious terrorists so that they can be eliminated,” he said.
Lt Gen Pandey said that 200-225 militants were active across the JK. “No infiltration has taken place so far. There has been information about one or two successful infiltrations. We have launched operations, they are on to check or neutralise them. But, according to ground inputs, there has been no successful infiltration or intrusion in the 15 Corps zone in the valley so far,” he said, adding that out of three militants who were killed in Bandipora recently, two had travelled through proper Visa route in 2017-18. “This is a design to take youth from here, train them there, and then send them here as terrorists. At least 40 youth have travelled on VISA to Pakistan for studying purpose but have become terrorists there.”
During the news conference, IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar said that Lamboo alias Adnan alias Saifullah has been active for a long and involved in several incidents. IGP said he had infiltrated into Kashmir in January 2017 and since then, he has been active in south Kashmir. “There were 14 FIRs registered against him. He is the main accused in one of the biggest attacks that took place on Feb 14, 2019,” he said.
“In total, there are 19 accused in the case. Seven have been arrested and with Lamboo, seven have been killed. Five are still absconding whom we will arrest or neutralise in the encounter. In its chargehseet, NIA had also named Lamboo. He was an IED expert and a threat for us.”
The IGP said that Lamboo was involved in the killing of SPO Fayaz Ahmed, his wife and daughter in Tral last month. The attack took place at the behest of Lamboo and he is main accused. “He used to train youth in IED making. So, with his killing the IED threat has been lessened not only in the south Kashmir but in the whole valley. We will soon neutralise his accomplices,” he said.
“The way the intelligence is pouring in and the operations are taking place, the time is not far away that JeM will be wiped from here.”
The Kashmir police chief said that “there is no one from the relation of the Masood Azhar family (here) as of now. 89 terrorists among them seven foreign terrorists have been killed so far this year,” he said adding that it’s lesser than last year but more top commanders have been killed this year.
GOC Victor Force Rashim Bali during the news conference said that they were getting a lot of intelligence from the JKP “as well as the locals about the movement and the way this gentleman has been ill treating the locals there, generally in the area”.
“For the last 15 days, there were about three reports of his sexual misconduct with a few ladies also generally in the upper reaches of Dachigam forests,” he said.
“As soon as we zeroed on them, they were alerted by barking dogs, they asked ladies to come out first and four very small children, and as soon as these ladies and children were pushed out, behind them they opened automatic fire and started lobbing grenades,” Gen Bali said. “The idea was that while we try to save the ladies and the children, they will try to make good their escape.”
Gen Bali said that there was retaliation and both of them were drop dead within a matter of two-three minutes. “So far, we have recovered M4 with a telescopic site which used to be there only with Lamboo. Second, we have recovered a glock pistol — which is not there with every terrorist here. We have also recovered a Chinese pistol and an Ak-47 rifle.
“This has probably been the biggest strike of this year for the JKP and the security forces and I am sure this will continue,” he added.