Shopian: Three militants of Lashkar-e-Toiba and a policeman were killed in a gunfight on Srinagar outskirts on Sunday.
The firefight erupted after militants on a two-wheeler fired on government forces at Pantha Chowk in Srinagar outskirts on Saturday night.
The gunfight, according to police, started around midnight after forces launched searches in the adjoining area and found the two-wheeler abandoned by militants. The three militants had taken shelter in a residential house after making an abortive bid to snatch weapon from forces personnel deployed at Pantha Chowk, police said.
The militants, as per police, were given an opportunity to surrender and repeated surrender appeals were made through their respective families before they fired “indiscriminately” on the search party triggering a gunfight.
In the ensuing encounter, all the three militants were killed by the government forces. They were identified by police as LeT’s Saqib Bashir Khanday, Umar Tariq Bhat and Zubair Ahmad Sheikh, all residents of Drangbal Pampore in Pulwama district.
The trio, police said, were involved in planning and executing several attacks on the government forces in the area. Saqib specifically, as per police, was involved in a weapon snatching bid at J&K Bank Pampore besides “motivating and radicalizing youth” to join militancy.
As per the police statement, “incriminating material” including arms and ammunition were recovered from the site of the gunfight and they have been taken into case records for further investigation.
Besides the three militants, an Assistant sub-inspector of police identified as Babu Ram also sustained bullet injuries and succumbed to his injuries at a hospital.
His body was taken to District Police Lines Srinagar for a wreath laying ceremony, police said and the bodies of the three slain militants will be sent to Handwara for burial “keeping in view the prevailing pandemic due to COVID-19 and to ensure the safety of people from inherent risk of contracting the infection”.
Police said the nearest family members of the slain will be allowed to participate in the last rites at Handwara.
Director General of Police, Dilbagh Singh, said they had lost a “brave, well-trained and experienced” counter-insurgency cop, who he said, had been part of anti-militancy operations since a long time.
He said that the three militants, who were travelling on a motorcycle, had opened fire at the forces’ party in Pantha Chowk in a weapon snatching bid but the “alert forces foiled their plans forcing them to leave behind the bike and take shelter in a nearby house”.
Singh added that the one of the three slain militants was an LeT commander for the last more than a year adding that an AK-47 rifle and pistols were recovered from the gunfight site.

Irshad Khan