Tral: Three militants were taken by surprise when army soldiers gave them no time to respond during an ambush in South Kashmir’s Tral hamlet. In the nocturnal ambush soldiers shot all the three militants dead and recovered arms and ammunition from the spot.
Official sources told Kashmir News Trust that soldiers from 42 Rashtriya Rifles received information about the possible movement of militants during night hours in a Tral village. They laid an ambush at Kuchlaman village. At around 1:30 AM, three militants appeared in the village and were moving towards Amirabad village. The soldiers without any warning, shot three militants dead. They recovered an AK-74 rifle, one AK-56 rifle, 4 Magazines, 50 rounds and a pistol from the possession of these militants.
DGP in a press conference termed the killing of these militants as a major success for Forces and said that militancy is on the verge of extinction in Kashmir Valley.
He identified the slain militants as Jahangir Rafiq Wani of Ameerabad Tral, Raja Umar Maqbool of Lurgam Tral and Sadat Ahmed Thokar of Wagam Bijbehara.
As the killing of three militants spread in early morning, people in Tral and parts of Bijbehara observed shutdown that affected life badly. A large number of people offered funeral prayers for these militants in their native villages.
Jahangir Rafiq Wani had defected from Hizb and joined Ansar Ghazwatul Hind in 2018. His father had been killed in custody during Ikhwan period in 1996, family sources said.
DGP Dilbagh Singh said that Jahangir was the dangerous militant in the area after the killing of militant commander Hamad Khan. He said the slain militants were responsible for many civilian killings. “These militants were responsible for arson incident and they used to past threatening posters and even tried to torch a mosque in Amirabad Tral,” Singh said. (KNT)
