Srinagar
\nSecurity forces dealt a blow to the Lashkar-e-Toiba when they gunned down its top local commander in south Kashmir\u2019s Pulwama even as<\/p>\n
militants killed a policeman in an attack at neighbouring Kulgam district.<\/p>\n
Lashkar\u2019s district commander for Shopian Waseem Shah, alias Abu Usma, of Heff, Shopian, who was on the Army\u2019s most wanted list of 12<\/p>\n
militants, was killed along with his associate Nissar Mir in an hour-long gunfight in Lassipora Litter.<\/p>\n
The incident sparked clashes and protests. A youth, Gulzar Ahmad Mir, was killed and nearly a dozen persons injured during the clashes in<\/p>\n
alleged firing by the security force. The police, however, claimed Gulzar was killed in a crossfire.<\/p>\n
The gunfight erupted in the wee hours when joint teams of the police, Army and CRPF launched an operation at Litter village, 35 km from here,<\/p>\n
after getting a tip-off about the presence of two Lashkar militants in a house. \u201cAs a cordon was being laid, some civilians who came out of the<\/p>\n
house confirmed militants were inside. The militants were repeatedly asked to surrender but they opened fire. We retaliated and in the hour-<\/p>\n
long gunfight, the two were killed,\u201d Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir, Muneer Khan said. He said the killing of Waseem was a huge<\/p>\n
success for the security forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter joining militancy in 2014, he was involved in many incidents. He was recruiting locals for the Lashkar,\u201d the IGP said.<\/p>\n
Waseem was categorised as \u2018A++\u2019 militant and carried a reward of Rs 12 lakh. He was also in the group photo of Burhan Wani, in which the<\/p>\n
slain commander was seen with 10 local militants wielding automatic rifles. The photo had gone viral on the social media and raised a security<\/p>\n
alarm in the Valley. Except one, all militants in that photo have been neutralised.<\/p>\n
Police sources said after the killing of Pakistani Lashkar operations\u2019 chief Abu Ismail on Srinagar outskirts last month, Waseem was heading<\/p>\n
the group\u2019s operations in south Kashmir districts. According to locals, Waseem\u2019s associate was Nissar Mir, a resident of Pulwama, who was<\/p>\n
pursuing MPhil through the distance education mode, before joining the militancy in May this year. The two militants were laid to rest in their<\/p>\n
native places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Srinagar Security forces dealt a blow to the Lashkar-e-Toiba when they gunned down its top local commander in south Kashmir\u2019s Pulwama even as militants killed a policeman in an attack at neighbouring Kulgam district. Lashkar\u2019s district commander for Shopian Waseem Shah, alias Abu Usma, of Heff, Shopian, who was on the Army\u2019s most wanted list […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7700,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions\/7700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}