How was Burhan Wani cornered?

Majid Jahangir and Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 28

While police officers are not willing to come on record on the operation that has kept the Valley on the boil ever since, police sources said it was a chance encounter that left Burhan Wani dead.

They said the police had received inputs that two militants whose identity was not known were hiding at Bamdoora in Kokernag in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district. They said the militants were ferried by a Sumo driver to the village on July 6

Mehbooba Mufti-led government and the state police have come under severe criticism for their handling of the Burhan operation.

They have been accused of being caught off guard in the wake of massive protests and mourning following the killing of the social media savvy militant commander.

Certain security agencies had initially suggested that the Chief Minister was in the loop about the operation to eliminate Burhan, which was later denied by them.

PDP MP Muzaffar Hussain Baig was the first leader to go public with his views that Mehbooba was not aware of the encounter.

Sources revealed that the Intelligence Bureau had got an input about Burhan’s presence in the village, which it had shared only with top security officials of the state.

The police sources, however, reveal that inputs about the two suspected unknown militants in Bamdoora were received after a few overground workers (OGWs) of the Hizbul Mujahideen from north Kashmir were apprehended en route south Kashmir near Pampore two days ahead of Burhan’s killing. Their questioning led the police to the Awantipore area and a few more OGWs of the group were arrested.

The questioning of the OGWs of the Awantipore area further led the police to a sumo driver from Anantnag who had dropped two unknown militants in Bamdoora village from north Kashmir.

All this was being supervised by a team of officers from the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the J&K Police basedin Srinagar.

“There was a general input that two unidentified militants were hiding in the area. An operation was launched and at least 20 houses searched on July 8 with only a few left. As a team was moving towards a house which was still to be searched, an old man told them that there was no one inside,” a source said.

“As the old man went inside, the militants opened fire and a policeman of the SOG cargo unit was injured. A gunfight followed, in which one militant was killed initially. As the gunfight continued, two more militants tried to break the cordon and were killed. One of them was later identified as Burhan,” he said.

Soon after the gunfight, Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, Javaid Mujtaba Gillani, had said the trio was carrying AK rifles.

While the police maintained that Burhan was killed in a chance encounter, the sources said Central intelligence agencies had been actively tracking his movement.

Despite so much information, the government is yet to officially come out with operation details and reveal the identity of persons, including OGWs, arrested during the operation