Srinagar: Two militants including top Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Saleem Parray were killed in Srinagar in two separate encounters on Monday, police said.
Mohammad Saleem Parray of Hajin in north Kashmir’s Bandipora was killed in Srinagar’s Harwan area in the afternoon, police said. Another encounter broke out in Gasu area of Shalimar and a militant identified as Hafiz alias Hamza of Pakistan was killed there, police said.
“He was involved in killing 2 policemen in Bandipora & after this incident, he shifted to Harwan area of Srinagar,” IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar said in a tweet on Hafiz alias Hamza.
A police official said that got specific inputs about presence of Parray and his associate Pakistan militant in Shalimar area in Srinagar. It said while Parray was killed in the encounter but the foreign militant ran away. He was followed and killed in another encounter at Gasu area in Shalimar, he added.
IGP Kumar termed the killing of top Lashkar-e-Toiba militant Muhammad Saleem Parray as a big success for the police.
Talking to reporters at the site of the encounter, he said that police cornered Paray and he opened fire. In the retaliatory firing, he was killed.
He said that the killing of Parray was a big success for police as he was involved in dozens of civilian killings in Hajin area. “In the 2016 agitation, Saleem Parray had killed 12 civilians by slitting their throats,” he said.
Parray joined LeT in October 2017 when his photo went viral on social media holding an AK-47. A mechanic by profession, he is survived by four brothers and a sister and his parents.
His brother has been detained under Public Safety Act since 2019 in Karnal Haryana Jail.

Reader correspondent