A day after the dead bodies of two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants, 24-year-old Junaid Mattoo and 20-year-old Nishar Ahmed Wani, were recovered, gunshots were fired at Wani’s funeral, reports CNN-News 18. The two were killed in an encounter in South Kashmir’s Arwani on Friday.
A gunbattle broke out in Kulgam’s Arwani village on 16 June after the forces received information that three militants were trapped in a house there, police said. They also recovered two AK 47s and six magazines.
In an act of possible revenge, LeT militants on Friday ambushed a police party on the outskirts of Anantnag district soon after the gunbattle in Kulgam. Six policemen, including the Station House Officer of Achabal area, were killed.
Who Were Mattoo and Wani?
Apart from Mattoo and Wani, the body of 18-year-old Adil Mushtaq Mir alias ‘Nana’ was also recovered, according to a report in The Indian Express.
Mattoo was from Khudwani village of J&K’s Kulgam district and reportedly took up militancy in June 2015. He had earlier shot down two policemen in Anantnag in June 2016. Wani was reportedly from Heff Shremal of Shopian district.
One Civilian Killed
A 22-year-old was killed and five civilians received pellet injuries when they made an attempt to stall the ongoing counter-insurgency operation, officials said.
The encounter started at 10 am after security forces, including army personnel, cordoned off a house at Malik Mohalla in Arwani village following an intelligence tip-off that three militants were present inside, officials said.
Security forces cordoned off the house by 8 am and there was a patient wait for two hours before the first fire came from the house at 10 am, they said.
According to reports, Junaid Mattoo, from Khudwani, was among the three trapped inside the house along with Azad Malik and a Pakistani terrorist. Mattoo gained notoriety after he shot two policemen in broad daylight at the busy Anantnag bus stand in June 2016. The act was caught on CCTV.
The encounter comes a day after a policeman was killed in an open firing in Bogund, a village in Kulgam on Thursday. Constable Shabir Ahmad was shot outside his residence and was rushed to a local hospital, but he did not survive, police officials informed.
Responding to other recent attacks in the district, Khan said that the presence of militants, specially local ones, in South Kashmir is high in comparison to north Kashmir.
Terrorists make videos to threaten, discourage our police jawans, but we are capable of dealing with such propaganda.M Khan, Kashmir IGP
(With inputs from The Indian Express, CNN News 18, ANI and PTI)
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