Srinagar/Nov, 23 : Police in statement on Friday said that the six militants killed in Bijbehara gun fight have been identified.
The statement said 'the slain militants have been identifiedas Azad Ahmad Malik of Arwani Bijbehara, Unais Shafi of Takiya Maqbool Shah Bijbehara, Basit Ishtiyaq of Pushwara Anantnag, Atif Najar of Waghama Bijbehara, Firdous Ahmad of Muchpuna Pulwama and Shahid Bashir of Kawni Awantipora’ adding that ‘It was a combined group of Hizb-Ul-Mujahideen and Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) as Unais Shafi and Basit Ishtiyaq as per police records were with HM and Unais was the district commander of Anantnag district, while the others were with LeT outfit’ .
Claiming that all the slain militants were wanted by the law for their complicity in a series of militancy incidents including attack on security establishments and civilian atrocities, the statement said ‘as per police records Unais Shafi and Basit Ishtiyaq were involved in several grenade lobbing and firing incidents. Firdous Ahmad known as district commander of Pulwama for LeT had a long history of involvement in militancy related incidents including cases and the prominent among them include FIR No 16/2018, FIR No 131/2018, FIR No 139/2018, FIR No 284/2018 registered at PS Pulwama and FIR No 37/2018 at PS Rajpora’.
Saying that Azad Ahmad Malik @Azad Dada who was District commander of LeT Anantnag had escaped from an encounter site at Khudwani Kulgam in April 2018 along with one more associate the statement reads ‘ Azad was a close associate of absconding accused Naveed Jatt. Azad Dada among several other militancyrelated offences had also figured in the case FIR No: 51/2018 PS Kothi Bagh pertaining to the assassination of journalist Shujaat Bukhari and his security personnel. In the aforementioned case which is under investigation, a hue and cry notice was issued against the said individual along with three others on the basis of material evidence collected’.
The statement also said that huge quantity of arms & ammunition including 4 AK 47 rifles and one Insas rifle were recovered from the site of encounter and all these materials have been taken in the case records for further investigation and probe their complicity in other militancy related cases adding that ‘the citizens are once again requested not to venture inside the encounter zone since such an area can prove dangerous due to stray explosive materials. People are requested to cooperate with police till the area is completely sanitized and cleared of all the explosives materials if any’
