A top Jaish-e-Mohammed militant, believed to be the mastermind behind the 2005 Ayodhya attack, was killed by police in a gun battle here on Saturday, foiling the ultras’ plan to strike in the city on the eve of the Independence Day.

Saifullah Kari, the self-styled divisional commander of the JeM, was killed and one of associates captured in an injured condition by a joint team of Jammu and Delhi Police in Janipura area of the city, Inspector General of Police, Jammu zone, S P Vaid told reporters here.

On specific information regarding the presence of militants in the house of one Abdul Rehman at Ramzanpura in Janipur, the police cordoned off the area on Friday night, he said. As the police party was tightening the cordon, the militants opened fire which was retaliated, resulting in a fierce encounter, he said adding, in the exchange of fire, Kari was killed and another JeM member injured.

The injured militant, identified as Zaffar Iqbal alias Umar, is a resident of Tradkhad of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He is in custody and undergoing treatment in the police hospital, the IGP said. One sub-inspector of Delhi Police, Devinder Singh, was injured in the gunfight.

The IGP said police recovered one Chinese pistol, two Chinese grenades, one satellite phone, seven mobile phones and Rs 30,000 from the possession of the slain militant. The IGP said four persons, including a teacher and a student, were taken into custody for questioning as they were present in the house during the encounter.
Police also recovered an I-card of Election Commission from Kari, who has been organising JeM activities in different parts of the country, Vaid said. The IGP said the militants had been staying at Ramzanpura for more than a month and are suspected to have been planning attacks on the eve or on the I-day in Jammu or other parts of the country.

Mastermind
Kari was the mastermind behind the attack in which six heavily armed terrorists who made an attempt to storm the high-security makeshift Ram temple, were killed before they could make it to the shrine on July five, 2005, the IGP said.

Preliminary questioning indicated that their two associates were also putting up somewhere in Mendhar area of Poonch district and the police are looking for them, he said. He said more details about their activities will be known after checking the numbers in Kari’s seized satellite and mobile phones. Their contacts within and across the border would also come to light after probe, he added.

Kari was the mastermind behind the Ayodhya attack in which six heavily armed terrorists — Abu Umar, Arafat, Mohammed Amin, Zubair, Arshad Ali and Arif of Pakistan — who made an attempt to storm the high-security makeshift Ram temple, were killed before they could make it to the shrine on July five, 2005, the IGP said.
The plan was formulated jointly by JeM chief Masood Azhar and Kari in Bangladesh. Police in Delhi said Kari had sent two of his associates to set up a base in the capital soon after the Ayodhya attack.

This had come to light in August 2005 when the duo —Mohd Aslam Wani and Khursheed Ahmad Bhatt —  were arrested here with five kg of RDX and arms and ammunition. “We were after Kari from then onwards. We had obtained a non-bailable warrant against him from a court here,” Karnal Singh, Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police’s elite Special Cell, told reporters. The arrests of Wani and Bhat came a month after the July 7, 2005 attack on the make-shift temple in Ayodhya and Delhi Police had information that Kari had “some plans” to carry out attacks in the capital, he said.

“With the help of intelligence agencies, we succeeded in tracking the movement of Kari in a house in Ramzanpura colony in Jammu,” Singh said.