An 18-year-old youth who had gone missing from his home in Srinagar’s Khanyar area on 16 April was killed during an encounter in Pulwama.
The Jammu Kashmir Police in its press release said, based on specific input generated by Pulwama Police regarding the presence of militants in the Pahoo area of Pulwama, a joint cordon and search operation was launched by Police and Army (50RR ) in the said area.
As the search party proceeded towards the suspected spot, the hiding militants fired indiscriminately upon the search party which was retaliated effectively leading to an encounter, the statement read.
“Later on CRPF also joined the operation. In the ensuing encounter, 03 terrorists linked with LeT were killed and their bodies were retrieved from the site of encounter. They have been identified as Arif Ahmad Hazar alias Rehan (Deputy of LeT’s top commander Basit), Abu Huzaifa alias Haqqani (Pakistani terrorist) and Natish Wani alias Haider resident of Khanyar, Srinagar,” it reads.
“Pertinently, the killed terrorist Arif Hazar was a categorized terrorist, active since March 2021 and involved in several terror crime cases including attacks on Police/SFs and civilian atrocities besides, several cases were registered against him in Srinagar city.”
IGP Kashmir termed this operation a big success and congratulated the joint forces for carrying out the operation in a professional manner without any collateral damage.
Earlier The Kashmiriyat reported that, the family members of Natish Ahmed Wani, son of Shakeel Ahmed Wani, a resident of Babdum Khaniyar area of Srinagar had appealed him to return home, three days after he went missing from his home.
“He left his home on Saturday afternoon and did not return home, which caused panic among the family members. We called him, but his phone has been switched off since then,” the family members had said.