Naikoo evaded arrest for 8 yrs, shot in native village
Azhar Qadri
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, May 6
The killing of Riyaz Naikoo, one of the most wanted-militant and also the chief of operations of the Hizbul Mujahideen, marks an end of the era of Kashmir’s ‘famous’ militants who pushed the insurgency out of anonymity.
Crimes Riyaz was involved in
- Killing of Haji Ghulam Mohammad Dar, father of a sarpanch, at Dogripora on March 8, 2014
- Firing on a police bus near Bhatpora Tokena
Killing of Gh Mohi-Ud-din Dar
Killing of Javaid Akbar Khanday, resident of Khandaypora
Killing of police Head Constable Ashiq Hussain Mir at the Padgampoara crossing
Kidnapping of Constable Naseer Ahmad
Looting of nine weapons from the residence of former MLA Wachi
Killing of six migrant labourers in Kulgam
Killing of truck drivers and fruit traders post August 5, 2019
Release of an audio tape threatening attacks on the jail staff after preferential treatment being provided to militants and separatists lodged in various jails was discontinued
Naikoo, who survived for eight years since he became a militant in 2012, was eventually killed in his native village of Beighpora in the southern Pulwama district.
Even though Naikoo’s killing is a significant blow to pro-Pakistan group Hizbul Mujahideen, it also marks an end of an era in which a generation of militants evoked folklore popularity and gained an unprecedented support and sympathy.
Naikoo was the last surviving member of the militant generation who had meticulously unveiled themselves as the faces of the insurgency, which had otherwise remained in the shadows of anonymity for more than two decades.
The era of ‘popular’ militants — ‘immortalised’ by names, faces and voices of characters like Burhan Wani and Zakir Musa — in Kashmir is over for now as none of the surviving commanders and cadres has been able to step forward.
Kashmir’s insurgency had completely morphed itself into a new avatar in 2015 when a complete new generation of youth picked up arms and made themselves distinct by revealing identities on social media. It made them household names.
The reversals, however, began somewhere in autumn of 2018 when dozens of district-level commanders were killed in precise anti-insurgency operations that dramatically dented the capabilities of the militant groups.
Nearly 800 militants — most of them locals, ill-trained and ill-equipped — have been killed in last four years and during the first half of this year.
The Hizbul Mujahideen, which had faced a serious crisis by the 2017 dissent of Musa, who left the pro-Pakistan group for the Islamist cause, is now likely to struggle to find an effective replacement for Naikoo who had saved the group from getting fractured.
