Police on Tuesday said they had shot dead a Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist who was allegedly involved in the October 20 attack in Kashmir's Gagangir in which seven civilians were killed.
Junaid Ahmad Bhat was killed in an exchange of fire with security forces in the Dachigam forests on the outskirts of Srinagar.
The killing came on a day the police booked two women in Jammu’s Udhampur under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) for their alleged role in assisting militants. A village defence guard (VDG) also died of gunshot wounds in the same district.
A local doctor and six non-residents working on a tunnel project in Ganderbal's Gagangir were killed and five others injured on October 20, making it the deadliest attack in the Valley in years.
The forces had launched multiple operations in and around Dachigam in recent weeks. A police spokesperson said they acted on specific intelligence inputs on the militants by launching a cordon-and-search operation in the upper reaches of Dachigam on Monday night.
The operation turned into a gunfight after militants fired at a search party of the security forces, he said. In the exchange of fire, Bhat, an A-category militant of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, was killed. He was a resident of Qaimoh in Kulgam.
“In the ongoing operation, one terrorist is killed and has been identified as Junaid Ahmed Bhat (LeT, Category A). The said terrorist was involved in civilian killing at Gagangir, Ganderbal and several other terror attacks,” the Kashmir zone police said in a post on X.
The police also said that a cordon-and-search operation was under way. Dachigam, a national park on the fringes of Srinagar, is famous for sheltering endangered hanguls, a Kashmir stag.
Bhat is one of the two militants who reportedly carried out the October 20 attack.
The police have detained two women, Maryama Begum of Loudhara village and Arshad Begum of Rai Chak, from Basantgarh in Udhampur district under the PSA.
Their detention under the PSA marks a new hardline policy in the Jammu region. Women have been rarely booked under the Act in the area. Last week, the police arrested 10 alleged overground workers of militants in separate raids in Jammu.
While the police have accused the women of sheltering and assisting militants, locals said they do so reluctantly and are helpless before the heavily armed militants.
A police spokesperson said the two women were detained after it was concluded that they posed a significant threat to the region’s security. “These terror associates were found to be involved in providing logistical support to terrorist groups and working as guides and facilitators for terrorist organisations,” he said.
“Their continuous actions posed a serious risk to public safety and tranquillity.”
The spokesperson said they were ordered to be detained under the PSA to prevent “further criminal activities detrimental to the security of the region”.
The police released pictures of the two women in handcuffs.
Udhampur police chief Amod Nagupre said they recovered the body of VDG Ashok Kumar from the forest on Tuesday.
He said there was no terror angle in the killing and suspected it was a case of suicide.