Srinagar, January 30: Top commander among Five militants affliated with outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-i-Toiba (LeT) were killed in twin overnight gunfights in Pulwama and Budgam districts on Sunday, Police said.

In a tweet by official Police handle, the Kashmir Zone Police while Quoting Inspector General of Police Kashmir Vijay Kumar wrote, ” 05 militants of Pakistan sponsored militant outfits LeT & JeM killed in dual encounters in last 12 hours. JeM commander militant Zahid Wani & a Pakistani militant among the killed. Big success for us,”.

Inspector General of Police Kashmir Vijay Kumar said that besides top commander Zahid Wani, a Pakistani militant identifying him as Kafeel @Chotu was killed in Pulwama Gunfight. Both were affiliated with JeM, the police said.

Kafeel was active since 2020 in Pulwama-Shopian Belt, the top police officer added.

On Saturday evening two encounters started back to back in Naira area of Pulwama and Charar-i-Shareef area of Central Kashmir’s Budgam district between militants and security forces.

Later addressing a presser, top security officials Sunday said that five militants were killed in twin encounters in past 12 hours—four in Naira, Pulwama district and one in Charar-e-Shareef area of Budgam district.

They said among the four slain in Naira, Pulwama was the wanted Jaish-e-Muhammad outfit’s Kashmir chief for south Kashmir Zahid Manzoor Wani.

Addressing a joint press conference at Balapur, Shopian, the General officer Commanding (GoC) of South Kashmir based Victor Force Lieutenant General Prashant Srivastava said that acting on a specific lead, joint teams of police, army and CRPF laid a siege in Naira village of Pulwama on Saturday evening. “In the initial assault, three militants were killed and later the presence of another militant was established and he was also killed and identified as Zahid Manzoor Wani, an IED expert and the JeM’s south Kashmir chief,” the GoC Victor Force said. He was the master mind of IED attacks carried out in South Kashmir since 2017 and the main recruiter of local boys into militancy fold. “His killing is a big success for forces,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar said that during the operation, house owner’s son Inayat Ahmed, was asked to surrender but he along with militants opened fire at the security forces and got killed. “He was a hybrid militant,” the IGP said. He said that the house owner at Naira, Pulwama, in whose house the encounter took place, will be booked under UAPA.

He said the killing of JeM commander Zahid Manzoor Wani, who was the wanted commander of JeM, was killed along with his three associates while another militant of LeT was killed in an encounter at Charar-e-Shareef in Budgam district.

“In total, five militants, of which four were killed in Naira, Pulwama and one in Budgam in the past 12 hours,” he said. The IGP said that Zahid was in fact the chief of JeM for the entire Kashmir. “His brother was also a militant and is in jail,” the IGP said.

The IGP said that since January 1, 11 encounters took place in which 21 militants including eight foreigners were killed. “Foreigners who were hiding in forests are coming and settling down in civilian areas. With the help of human and technical inputs, we are zeroing in on them and killing them in clean operations,” he said, adding that in both the operations, there were no casualties to security forces. He said all efforts are in place to bring down local militant recruitment and a strategy is being followed to bring the number of active militants less than 100 this year. kno