Srinagar: The Army Monday killed alleged mastermind of Sunjuwan army cam attack in which six soldiers were killed, officials said on Monday. Mufti Waqas, the operational commander of Jaish – e Mohammad, who plotted the attack at Sunjuwan army camp, was killed during an encounter in south Kashmir’s Awantipora.
“Based on specific intelligence of presence of a militant in the area of Hatwar, Awantipora, a joint specific operation was launched Monday by 50 RR.During the operation the mastermind of the Sunjuwan attack and Letapore attack, Jaish e Mohammed operational commander Mufti Waqas, category A++, has been eliminated in a surgical operation,” the army spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson also stated that there had no civilian casualties or collateral damage during the operation. “This has resulted in a major dent to the designs of JeM as after elimination of their earlier operational commander Noor Mohd Tantrey in the same area in Dec 17, his successor too has been killed.”
The Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists had struck the sprawling camp of the 36 brigade of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in Sunjuwan on February 10. Six army men and a civilian were killed in the attack.
According to officials, Waqas, a Pakistani national who had infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley in 2017, was functioning as the operational commander of the outfit and had sent ‘fidayeens’ (suicide attackers) from Tral in South Kashmir to Jammu where they had carried out the strike on the Army camp on February 10.