Top Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, Usman Bhai was today killed in a gun battle with security forces in the downtown city of Srinagar.
IGP Kashmir, V.K. Birdi addressing reporters said that the top Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Usman Bhai, a native of Pakistan and a crime spree perpetrator was gunned down in a 24 hour long battle fought in Khanyar locality.
Usman was involved in several militancy-related cases, including the killing of non-locals and security forces. He was also involved in the killing of Inspector Manzoor Ahmad Wani who was seriously injured on October 29, 2023, in the Eidgah area of Srinagar city," he said.
Two CRPF jawans and two policemen were injured in this gunfight on Saturday.
According to officials, security forces started a CASO, or Cordon & Search Operation, in the Khanyar area after taking some intelligence inputs about terrorists.
"As the security forces came closer to the hiding terrorists, they fired at the security forces triggering an encounter which is now going on," said an official.
It was the first incident in over 10 years in the heart of the downtown Srinagar area.
This area was the hotbed of separatist sentiment and militants used to move freely in this area. With the passage of time, security forces could eliminate militancy from these areas. It was considered that Srinagar city as a whole, and the downtown areas in particular, had been cleared of militancy.
However, the gunfight in the Khanyar area seems to have dented this belief.
Two terrorists were gunned down by the security forces near Halkan Gali in the Shangus-Larnoo area of Anantnag district in another ongoing operation.
On Friday, terrorists shot at and injured two non-local labourers, Sanjay and Usman, both belonging to Uttar Pradesh, in Mazhama village of Magam area of Budgam district. Both injured were immediately shifted to a hospital where doctors described their condition as stable.
In Gagangir of the Ganderbal district, last month, terrorists killed six workers of an infrastructure project company and a local doctor. The workers were constructing a tunnel from Gagangir to Sonamarg tourist resort to make the Srinagar-Sonamarg an all-weather road and to generate economic growth and employment in the area. The Gagangir attack included six non-local workers and a doctor belonging to the Budgam district.
It was only later that terrorists targeted an army soldier and two porters in the Botapathri area of Gulmarg in Baramulla district.
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