Terrorist killed in J&K’s Budgam linked to LeT

Jammu and Kashmir Police on Saturday identified the terrorist killed in a joint operation in central Kashmir’s Budgam district as Yasir, a Pakistani national affiliated with the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist outfit.

The slain terrorist is believed to have been involved in the ambush of an IAF convoy in Poonch and an attack on army and civilian workers in 2024.

Meanwhile, massive searches were going on at an altitude of 12,000 to 15,000 feet to track down the footprints of the second terrorist in the Pir Panjal range. According to the officials, the encounter site is nearly six hours from the Doodhpathri area of Budgam and is extremely isolated.

Security agencies described the elimination as a significant blow to the group’s remaining network in the Pir Panjal belt. So far, three out of four LeT terrorists hiding in the upper reaches of Kashmir have been eliminated, and a massive hunt is going on in the forested area of Budgam to neutralise the lone surviving terrorist of the same group.

In a post on X, J&K Police on Saturday said, “You can run, but you can’t hide! The terrorist neutralised during Op Ashdar has been identified as Yasir, a Pakistani national of Lashkar-e-Taiba.”

The operation, named Operation Ashdar by the Army’s Srinagar-based Chinar Corps, was launched on Thursday after specific intelligence that a suspected group of terrorists was moving from Pakherpora in Pulwama towards Yousmarg in Budgam through the forested Ashdar Gali area. The joint search involved the Indian Army, J&K Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Officials said troops had tracked movement across mountain passes in the Pir Panjal range and trekked for hours from the Doodhpathri side to close in. The area is a known transit corridor linking the Kashmir Valley with Poonch in the Jammu region.

On Friday, troops deployed at one of the Temporary Operating Bases (TOBs) observed suspicious movement in the rugged, high-altitude terrain above the Yousmarg tourist belt. When challenged, the suspects opened fire. In the ensuing exchange, one terrorist was killed. An AK-series rifle and other war-like stores were recovered from the site.

Kashmir Zone Inspector General of Police Sujit Kumar visited the operation area on Friday to review the search.

According to the police, Yasir’s presence was first detected in 2024. Inputs suggest his involvement in at least three major terror incidents in 2024: an ambush of an Indian Air Force (IAF) convoy in Poonch district in May, an attack on construction workers near Sonamarg in October, and an attack on the army in Bota Pathri.

An IAF member was killed and four others injured when terrorists ambushed a convoy of the force in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district. The attack took place near Shashidhar in the Surankote area around 6.15 pm on May 4, 2024, when the troops were returning to their base at Sanai Top.

Seven people, one of them a local doctor, were gunned down by a terrorist group on October 20, 2024, at Gangangir in Sonamarg.

Yasir was part of the terror group led by Junai Ahmed Bhat, a Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, who was shot dead by security forces on December 3, 2024, in Dachigam forest on the outskirts of Srinagar. 

On October 24, 2024, Yasir and other terrorists ambushed an Indian Army vehicle in the Bota Pathri area near Gulmarg, Jammu and Kashmir, killing five people — three soldiers and two porters.

The officials said Yasir had crossed to the north of the Pir Panjal range to meet Junaid, and since the Bota Pathri encounter, he and Musa, another Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist, had been hiding in the Yusmarg and Pulwama belts. They returned south of the Pir Panjal range in the Jammu region last year, only to re-enter the Valley earlier this month.