A commander of the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was trapped by the Indian security forces at Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in the wee hours of Saturday, 16 October.
LeT commander Umar Mustaq Khandey, one of the 'top 10 targets' of the J&K Police, was trapped in an encounter conducted by the security forces in the Drangbal area of Pampore.
"LeT commander Umar Mustaq Khandey, one of the top 10 targets of J&K police and who was involved in the killing of two police personnel at Baghat, Srinagar and other terror crimes, is trapped in Pampore encounter."Vijay Kumar, Kashmir Inspector-General
The encounter occurred after a joint team of the police and the army, upon receiving intelligence about the presence of militants in the region, cordoned off the area and launched a search operation, as per news agency IANS.
Meanwhile, in another operation conducted by the Srinagar police in Bemina on Friday night, two terrorists, Shahid Bashir Sheikh and Tanzil Ahmad, were neutralised by the forces.
The two were involved in the recent killings of civilians in the Valley, including those of two teachers and a local businessman.
"Terrorists Shahid and Tanzil of Srinagar city who were collaborators in recent civilian killings of one chemist (Bindroo) and 2 teachers (Supinder Kaur and Deepak Chand) in Srinagar, neutralised today in 2 anti-terrorists ops," stated IGP Kashmir.
Recent Spate of Civilian Killings in J&K
As recently as 7 October, two government school teachers were shot dead inside a government school by militants at the Sangam Eidgah area of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir.
The deceased included Deepak Chand, a Hindu from Jammu, who was a teacher at the school, and Supunder Kour, a Sikh, who had been the institution's principal.
On 5 October, three civilians, including a prominent local businessman Makhan Lal Bindroo, were reportedly killed by militants.
"These recent incidents of targeting civilians are to create an atmosphere of fear, communal disharmony here. This is a conspiracy to target the local ethos and defame local Kashmiri Muslims. This is being done on instructions from agencies in Pak," Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbag Singh had been quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
DG Singh said that terror outfit The Resistance Front (TRF) was behind the recent attacks.
Over 700 people have been detained in the last week by the Jammu and Kashmir police in the wake of the recent killings of seven civilians in the Union territory, NDTV reported on Sunday, 10 October.
(With inputs from IANS, ANI, and NDTV.)
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