Two policemen, a soldier and two militants were killed in separate incidents of violence in Kashmir Valley on Friday even as police busted a lashkar-e-Tayyeba module involved in looting a bank in Budgam district.
Official sources said that two militants and a soldier were killed during a fierce gunfight in Manzpora village of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district in the wee hours of Friday. They said that soldiers of 13 Rashtriya Rifles and cops from the counterinsurgency wing of the State had cordoned off the village late on Thursday evening following a specific report that militants were hiding in a residential house.
“At the crack of dawn, the security forces began the flush out operation. There was a heavy exchange of fire that resulted into grievous injuries to a soldier who later succumbed to his injuries,” a police officer said.
In the retaliatory action, two militants were killed. Hundreds of people hit the streets soon after the encounter demanding the bodies of the slain militants, suspected to be non-locals or foreign nationals, for last rites. However, police refused to hand over the bodies. A police officer said that the bodies were later sent to Uri in Baramulla district for burial.
In another incident, suspected militants targeted a police party in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district, killing two cops on the spot and critically injuring another.
Police sources said three personnel of Indian Reserve Police were targeted by militants outside the district police lines Kulgam in south Kashmir, around 90 kilometers from here.
The car-borne militants fired automatic weapons, first targeting the police party and then in air to scare away people in order to flee from the area.
The slain cops have been identified as head constable Tanveer Ahmad and Constable Jalaluddin Khandey. The wounded cop Shamsuddin Bhat of Reasi district was shifted to a Srinagar hospital for treatment.
A police official said that the militants later abandoned the vehicle around a kilometre from the attack site. The vehicle has been seized for investigations.
Meanwhile, police said that they busted a module of the over-ground workers of lashkar-e-Tayyeba outfit by arresting five persons who were involved in the bank robbery at Maloora Chrar-i-Sharief in central district Budgam On November 21. The arrested workers have revealed to the police that the conspiracy to loot the bank branch was hatched by Arif Dar alias Au Haibatullah, an active local leT militant.