Three LeT militants killed in Srinagar encounter

The slain terrorists were involved in the recent killing of sarpanch Sameer Ahmed Bhat of Khonmoh, police said

Three militants affiliated with The Resistance Front (TRF), an affiliate of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), were killed in an encounter with security forces in Nowgam area on the outskirts of Srinagar city on Wednesday.

Kashmir police chief Vijay Kumar said, acting on specific information about the presence of militants in the Nowgam area, police laid a cordon in the area late on Tuesday night. “The operation took time as we first evacuated civilians to avoid collateral damage,” he told reporters at the encounter site.

He said that in the ensuing encounter, three local LeT/TRF militants were killed. The slain militants were identified as Adil Teli, Saqib Tantray and Umer Teli of south Kashmir’s Shopian district.

“The slain terrorists were involved in the recent killing of sarpanch Sameer Ahmed Bhat of Khonmoh,” Kumar said and added one AK-47 rifle and two pistols were recovered from the encounter site.

“This module was targeting panchayat members as their masters don’t want grassroot-level democracy to flourish here,” the Kashmir police chief said.

Following a brief lull in encounters in February, there has been a surge in violence in Kashmir in March, leading to half a dozen civilian killings and a dozen militants.

The New Year had started with a surge in encounters between militants and security forces with one militant killed almost every day in January on average. However, the encounters and civilian killings waned in February with only five encounters reported in which two soldiers, seven militants, a police official and a civilian were killed.

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