Militant killed in encounter in Kashmir's Pulwama

A local militant of Hizbul Mujahideen was killed and another was injured in an encounter with security forces in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Saturday morning while a policeman was shot dead by ultras in northern Sopore town on Friday night.

A police official said that a joint team of army’s 55 Rashtriya Rifles, CRPF personnel and Jammu and Kashmir Police laid a siege around a cluster of houses in Babgund area of Pulwama, 32 km from Srinagar, and started a door-to-door search operations at around 2 am on Saturday.

“Militants hiding in one of the residential houses fired upon the search party, triggering a gunfight in which one militant was killed,” he said and identified the slain militant as Shabir Ahmad Dar, a resident of Samboora, Pulwama.

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Police said that one militant, who was injured in the encounter, was operated upon by doctors at SMHS hospital in Srinagar.

Police identified him as Showkat Dar of Muran, Pulwama.

Showkat was admitted by some unknown persons at SMHS, who wrote his name as Bashir Ahmad in the hospital registry, police added.

According to a doctor, Dar had received a bullet wound in his abdomen which severely damaged his internal organs and his condition was critical.

Reports said that despite restrictions imposed in volatile Pulwama town to prevent protests, hundreds of people participated in the funeral prayers of slain militant Shabir Dar at his native village of Samboora.

Earlier, unidentified militants shot dead a policeman at his home in Sopore area of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district on Friday night.

Police said that militants barged inside the house of Javid Lone in Warpora at around 10:45 pm and fired upon him.

Lone suffered serious bullet wounds and was shifted to the nearby hospital, where he succumbed to injuries.

“Lone was working as a follower in the police department and was on leave,” Javid Iqbal, superintend police Sopore, said.

The latest killings come barely two days after Manan Wani, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) scholar-turned-Hizbul commander, was killed along with his associate in an encounter with security forces in the frontier district of Kupwara on Thursday.

The encounters and killings have occurred at a time when Jammu and Kashmir is in the midst of a four-phased urban local bodies (ULB) polls, which commenced on October 8 and will conclude on October 16.