Militant commander Ilyas Kashmiri, who fought in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s, was once awarded by Pervez Musharraf for “slitting the throat” of an Indian army officer in 2000, a media report said on Sunday.
Kashmiri was a commander of the Harkat-ul-Jehad al-Islami (HuJI). He also served in the elite Special Service Group, a commando unit of the Pakistan army and was deputed by the military to train Afghan mujahideen fighting the Russian army in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, The News daily reported.
On February 26, 2000, Kashmiri reportedly conducted a guerrilla operation against the Indian army in Nakyal sector after crossing the Line of Control with 25 militants. He surrounded a bunker and threw grenades inside.
“He was able to kidnap an injured Indian officer, whose throat he later slit, the report said. Kashmiri came back to Pakistan with the head of the Indian officer and presented it to top army officials, including then army chief General Musharraf, who gave him a cash award of Rs.1 lakh,” it said.
Pictures of Kashmiri holding the head of the dead officer were published in some Pakistani newspapers and he became very important among militants, the report said.
He was reportedly killed in a United States drone attack in North Waziristan last week.
