Shopian: The overnight gunfight in Shopian’s Rawalpora, the native village of top Jaish-e-Mohammad commander Wilayat Ahmad Lone aka Sajad Afghani, entered its third night on Sunday, with one local Lashkar militant killed so far, arms and ammunition recovered, and massive clashes between government forces and civilians that were first of their kind since August 5, 2019, when Jammu & Kashmir was stripped of its autonomy and statehood and reduced to a Union Territory.
At least three houses have been destroyed during the operation, with locals saying that government forces “set them ablaze” and police saying that the houses “caught fire” during the operation. Locals said that huge smoke was billowing out of the houses and it was visible from a long distance from the encounter site.
Police identified the slain militant as Jahangir Ahmad Wani, son of late Abdul Rehman Wani, resident of Rakh Narapora Shopian, affiliated with proscribed outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).
Locals said that there has been no exchange of fire since Saturday 3.30am, but the entire village is still under cordon and nobody is allowed to leave. They said that lights were installed on Saturday night and reinforcements called in for the operation.
“Forces come and took tea and other eatables from us but neither are we being allowed to go out nor are they concluding this encounter,” a local told Kashmir Reader.
Witnesses told Kashmir Reader that massive clashes lasted for the whole day on Sunday in which at least three persons including a head constable of Indian Reserve Police (IRP) was injured. According to doctors posted at district hospital Shopian, two civilians with pellet injuries were brought to the hospital, among whom one with serious injuries was shifted to SMHS Srinagar. They said that another civilian with pellet injuries and a policeman was treated in the hospital.
The operation was launched on Friday evening by a joint team of government forces including 34 Rashtriya Rifles of army, Jammu and Kashmir Police, and central reserve police force (CRPF), based on intelligence inputs about presence of militants in the village. After 24 hours of the search operation, contact with militants was established on Saturday evening, when hiding militants fired upon the search party, which was retaliated to, police said.
A police source said that after the initial exchange of fire, there was another exchange at around 12am in the night and a third exchange took place at around 3am. He said that one body was recovered in the morning from the site.
The Indian Army on one of their Twitter handles wrote that one M4 Carbine, 03 Magazines, 36 Armour Piercing rounds, and Cash Rs 9600 was recovered from the encounter site while the operation was in progress.
Mobile internet services remain suspended in the entire Shopian district since Saturday night.
Rawalpora is the native village of top JeM commander Wilayat Ahmad Lone aka Sajad Afghani who is associated with militancy since 2018.
Police said in a statement that the militants were given opportunity to surrender, but they fired indiscriminately upon the search party.
“As per police records, the killed militant was active since 01/09/2020 and was involved in several terror crime cases including attacks on security forces and civilian atrocities,” the police statement said.
It added, “During the encounter, three houses caught fire while a group of miscreants tried to disrupt the operation and created law & order problem near the encounter site during which some miscreants were also injured. However, to track the other hiding militants, cordon and search operation in the area is still going on. Further details shall be accordingly communicated.”

Raashid Hassan