Anantnag: Bilal Ahmad Lone, 40, in whose house three JeM militants including a top Pakistani commander were killed in a gunfight with government forces, committed suicide by hanging himself on Sunday, less than a month after the gunfight.
“He was found hanging in his house this morning and declared dead by the doctors,” police sources told Kashmir Reader, adding that Lone is survived by his wife, three children and an elderly father. His first-born is a 10-year-old daughter.
The gunfight had broken out in Lone’s house in Nagnad village in DH Pora area of Kulgam district on July 17. The militants holed up in Lone’s house dashed out of his house in a bid to escape and were gunned down in an open area outside his house, the police sources said.
“Top JeM militant Waleed Bhai alias Lambu, an IED expert, was killed along with two other militants in the gunfight. Three army men were also injured in the gunfight,” a senior police official from Kulgam district said.
Police have officially acknowledged that Lone has died and an investigation has been launched into the case.
Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) DH Pora, Ashiq Hussain, maintained that Lone was never summoned by neither the army nor the police during the course of the investigation into the gunfight of July 17.
“Not even once was he summoned,” Hussain told Kashmir Reader.
Hussain also rubbished claims on social media that Lone’s house had been damaged during the gunfight. “The house is completely intact. Not even a window of the house was broken because the militants had come out and were killed in the open,” Hussain said.

Suhail A Shah