Anantnag: Police today said that they have killed two Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) militants – one of them a Pakistani commander of the outfit and another a local militant, an IED expert – in a pre-dawn gunfight in Pulwama district of south Kashmir.
“It is a huge success,” Inspector General of Police (IGP) Vijay Kumar was quoted as saying by a police spokesperson. The slain militants have been identified as the Pakistani JeM commander, Furqan and the local IED expert Yasir Parray.
“Parray was an IED expert,” Kumar said, “Both were involved in several terror crimes,”
Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbagh Singh said that the two militants had been active and working in tandem for a long time now.
“Parray was active since 2019 and Furqan had crossed over from Pakistan a long time ago, through Bandipora where he remained active before venturing into south of Kashmir,” Singh said while talking to media men here in Pulwama district.
The gunfight took place in an orchard area of Qasabyar village in Pulwama district in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. A senior police official from the area said that there were specific inputs regarding the presence of militants in the area.
“The area was cordoned off in pre-dawn hours today and the hiding place of the militants was zeroed in soon,” the police official said. He said that the militants were asked to surrender, but they did not pay heed to the repeated requests.
“Instead, they opened fire towards the security personnel. The fire was retaliated and in the ensuing gunfight both the militants have been killed,” the official said.
Bodies of the militants, he said, have been retrieved from the site of the gunfight along with arms and ammunition, and some incriminating material. “The slain have been identified and the bodies have been sent to Srinagar for medico-legal formalities,” the official said.
The bodies will be sent to an undisclosed location in north Kashmir for burial as has been the norm now. The authorities in Kashmir denied handing over bodies of militants to their families citing Covid protocol since April 2020.
Ever since the bodies of militants are taken to north Kashmir for a quiet burial.
In Qasabyar village, meanwhile, locals said that the militants were hiding in a makeshift shed constructed inside an orchard. “The shed has been destroyed in the gunfight,” the locals said.

Suhail A Shah