August 29
A resident of Hawoora area of Quimoh belt of Kulgam district in south Kashmir, Altaf Ahmed Dar alias Kaczchroo aged 37 was the oldest operative of Hizb ul Mujahideen in the Kashmir valley.
He joined Militant ranks in 2006 and was arrested in August 2007 in a brief encounter with the Government forces.
Locals informed The Kashmiriyat that Altaf was living normal life after being released from the custody but got active in November 2012.
“He was known as encounter breaker. I have lost count of the number of times he managed to flee from encounter sites, including once in Frisal,” a senior police officer from Kulgam once told a news agency.
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Dar was one of the Hizb-Ul-Mujahideen’s top wanted militants in south Kashmir, and appeared in Army’s most wanted list twice as an A++ Category Militant with a reward of 12.5 Lakhs on his head.
He was in the second year of college studying arts when he joined militancy.
Police Sources informed The Kashmiriyat that Dar was working as an over ground worker (OGW) for Hizb-Ul-Mujahideen for a long time and was arrested before he joined the group formally.
“The Local police used to summon him to the Police stations constantly and and harass him,” a neighbour of Altaf told The Kashmiriyat.
After his release in following his detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA), he got “recycled” into militancy.
Dar was operational in South Kashmir districts including Kulgam and Islamabad (Anantnag) and was a close associate of Lashkar e Taiba commander, Bashir lashkar.
“There are dozens of cases registered against him and he is involved in many civilian and Police killings,” a police official told.