SRINAGAR: Violence escalated suddenly in Kashmir after six persons including two troopers of the counterinsurgency Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and four militants were killed in three separate encounters in north Kashmir yesterday.
Indian soldiers gunned down a senior member of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group, blamed for the November attacks in Mumbai, after a fierce firefight in Kashmir yesterday, police said.
An Indian soldier was also killed and three others wounded in the 18-hour gunbattle which started on Tuesday night on the outskirts of Sopore town north of Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital.
“Abu Hamza, senior commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba was killed in a fierce encounter,” senior police official Anand Jain said. Later, hundreds of Muslim mourners, shouting “we want freedom,” took to the streets with Hamza’s body.
Troops of 57 Rashtriya Rifles and the special operations group (SOG) of the state police surrounded a house in Hyatmula village of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district earlier yesterday following information about the presence of militants there. The militants were engaged in a sustained gunbattle that ended last evening in which two militants belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit were killed.
In the third encounter that occurred in the north Kashmir’s Kupwara district, another top LeT militant identified as Abu Abdul Rahman was killed by the security forces yesterday.
