Lashkar militant killed, soldier injured in Kupwara encounter

Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 18

A Lashkar-e-Toiba militant from Pakistan was killed in a two-hour-long encounter in the frontier district of Kupwara in north Kashmir on Thursday morning. An Army soldier was wounded in the gunfight.

The encounter took place at Salkot in Kupwara, around 100 km from Srinagar and less than one km from the headquarters of the Army’s Kupwara-based 28 Infantry Division.

The militant, identified as Mawia from Karachi, was hiding in a house, the police said. He tried to break the cordon by jumping out of the house.

“After the Army set up an effective cordon, the soldiers evacuated occupants of the house to safety to ensure that no innocent person was caught in the crossfire,” a spokesman said in Srinagar.

“After the terrorist holed up in the house realised that its occupants were evacuated, he opened fire on soldiers, resulting in a fierce gunfight,” he said.

“The retaliation by the Army men resulted in the death of the terrorist and a gunshot wound to an Army jawan. The body of the terrorist was recovered with one AK-47 rifle and warlike stores,” he added.

General Officer Commanding of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps Lt Gen Subrata Saha said the information was received from an intelligence agency and the militant was a foreign national from Lashkar.

“Based on a study of recoveries from the slain terrorist, it was assessed that he was preparing to receive a group from across the border,” he said.

Sources said they had been investigating the exact plan of slain militant. They said he had been active in the area for some time and had been planning to shift base to Srinagar and Budgam.

Some maps, a global positioning system and a matrix sheet were recovered from the slain militant, which were being looked into, the sources added.

This was the first encounter to take place in Kupwara district since December 2, the day of polling in the district. That day, six Lashkar militants and a Junior Commissioned Officer were killed and four Army personnel injured in the Nowgam sector.