Suspected Sunjwan Attack Mastermind Killed By Security Forces

Mufti Waqas, an operation commander of the JeM, was gunned down by the security forces in south Kashmir.

Mufti Waqas, the operation commander of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the alleged mastermind behind the Sunjwan attack, was gunned down by security forces on Monday, 5 March, in south Kashmir.

Acting on a specific intelligence input, a small team of the Army along with the elite Special Operations Group cordoned off the Hatwar area in Awantipur and carried out a "surgical attack" on a house, the Army said, reported PTI.

Waqas, who was also allegedly the mastermind of the suicide attack on a CRPF camp in South Kashmir's Lethpora, was killed in the surgical operation, it said.

There have been no civilian casualties or collateral damage, the Army added.

Waqas, the operation commander of JeM, was eliminated in Awantipora. He was the mastermind behind several terrorist attacks on security forces, including the Sunjwan attack. Weapons and incriminating materials like IED preparation material have been recovered. He is a foreign terrorist.

SP Pani, IGP Kashmir, to ANI

Waqas' killing has dented the designs of the JeM as it comes after the elimination of the terror group's operational commander Noor Mohd Tantrey in the same area on 17 December.

Waqas, a Pakistani national who had infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley in 2017, was functioning as the operational commander of the terror outfit and had sent fidayeens (suicide attackers) from Tral in South Kashmir to Jammu where they had carried out the strike on the Army camp on 10 February, officials told PTI.

Five Army men, including two junior commissioned officers (JCOs), and the father of a soldier were killed in the Sunjwan attack. All three terrorists were killed in retaliatory action.

Waqas was also allegedly responsible for radicalising local boys Fardeen Khandey and Manzoor Baba, who had carried out a suicide attack on a CRPF camp in South Kashmir's Lethpora on the intervening night of 30 December and 31 December last year.

(With inputs from PTI and ANI)