Top LeT commander killed in encounter

A Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) commander was killed in an encounter with security forces in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Saturday.

Sources said security forces cordoned off Begum Bagh, Kakapora, Pulwama, 32 km from here, after specific information about presence of some militants there.

As the search party was moving in the cordoned area, the hiding militants opened fire, they said, and added in retaliatory action one of the most wanted militants in south Kashmir Irshad Ahmad was killed.

Irshad, who hails from Padgampora area of Pulwama, had been active since 2011 and was listed as “A+” category (most wanted) militant by the police. He carried a bounty of Rs 10 lakh on his head. A senior police officer told Deccan Herald that Irshad was a senior commander of LeT and was wanted for his involvement in the 2013 Hyderpora attack on Army convoy in which eight soldiers were killed and more than a dozen injured.

“Besides he was involved in several other attacks on the Army and the police in the last few years including attack on a hotel in outskirts of the city in 2012,” he said and termed his killing as a big blow to LeT in south Kashmir.

The killing of Irshad comes a day after two Army personnel and equal number of LeT militants were killed in a fierce encounter in Laribal forest area of Handwara in North Kashmir’s Kupwara district.