Anantnag: A local militant, affiliated with the Lashkar-e-Toiba outfit, has been killed in a gunfight with government forces, here in the Awantipora area of Pulwama district, police said.
Though the police are yet to identify the militant officially, sources told Kashmir Reader that the slain might be Owais Raja, a resident of Subhanpora in the Bijbehara area of Anantnag district.
“He has been missing since the last three months and is believed to have joined the LeT,” the police official said.
A senior police official from the Awantipora area said that a cordon and search operation was launched at around 9 am, Tuesday morning, here in the Charsoo area of police district Awantipora.
“We had specific inputs regarding the presence of militants in the area,” he said. “Soon after the area was cordoned off the hiding place of the militant was zeroed in on.”
He said that contact was established with the hiding militant and he was given a chance to lay down his arms and surrender. “He however opened indiscriminate fire, which was retaliated and the militant was killed in the ensuing gunfight,” he said.
The body of the militant has been retrieved and the police have maintained that they have recovered incriminating material, along with arms and ammunition from the site of the gunfight.
“A family has been called in for identification and after the identity is established, and medico-legal formalities completed, it will be sent for burial to an undisclosed location in North Kashmir,” the official said.
The authorities in Kashmir have refused to hand over bodies of slain militants to their families, since April 2020, citing Covid protocol.
There has been an uptick in violence inKashmir this month. While militants have been targeting and killing people affiliated with politics and personnel of the government forces, the forces have upped their anti-militancy operations as well.

Suhail A Shah