Anantnag: A district commander of Hizbul Mujahideen and one of the longest surviving militants in recent times was killed in an overnight gunfight here in Pulwama district of south Kashmir, police said.
The slain militant has been identified as Feroz Ahmad Dar, son of Abdul Khaliq Dar, a resident of Heff Shirmal area in South Kashmir’s Shopian district. A post-graduate, Dar had joined the militant ranks in late 2017 and had since become the district commander of the outfit.
Dar is believed to have been the last surviving militant in the Zainapora belt of Shopian district, which a few years back was a thriving militant hot-spot, police sources told Kashmir Reader.
“He was involved in an attack at a minority guard room in Zainapora area of Shopian district in December 2018. 4 policemen were killed in the attack and their service rifles were snatched,” police said.
In an official press release police also accused Dar of being involved in the killing of a girl in 2019, and a non-local labourer the same year. “He was also instrumental in luring young, gullible boys towards militancy,” the police said.
The gunfight today took place in Usgam Pathri village in the Rajpora area of Pulwama district. A senior police official from the area said that the operation was launched in the area at about midnight Tuesday.
“We had specific inputs regarding the presence of militants in the area and accordingly a cordon and search operation was initiated,” the official said, adding that the hiding militant was zeroed in on and was asked to lay down his arms.
He, the official said, however, chose to fire in an indiscriminate manner. “The fire was retaliated and the militant was killed in the gunfight,” the official said, “His body, along with arms and ammunition has been retrieved,” he added.
The official said that the body was sent to Srinagar after medico-legal formalities and will be headed to North Kashmir for a quiet burial. The authorities in Kashmir have refused to hand over bodies of slain militants to their families, citing Covid protocol, since April last year.
There has been a considerable uptick in violence in the Kashmir valley this week. The week started off with the killing of two militants in the Rangreth area of Srinagar Monday morning. On the same evening, militants ambushed a police bus in the Zewan area on Srinagar outskirts, leaving 3 policemen dead and at least 11 others injured. This has been the deadliest militant attack in the Kashmir valley this year.

Suhail A Shah