Lashkar-e-Taiba militant Abu Ukasha Afghani was on Sunday killed in a joint operation by the Jammu and Kashmir police and the Army in northern Kashmir’s Kupwara area.
Handwara Superintendent of Police Maqsood-uz-Zamaan told The Hindu that the Special Operations Group of the J&K police launched, along with troops of Rashtriya Rifles, a cordon-and-search operation at Sodal, about 90 km from Srinagar, acting on specific information about the presence of the Pashto-speaking militant Afghani, reportedly a resident of Pakistan’s North Western Frontier Province.
“Afghani was killed in a surgical operation. He was the LeT’s Divisional Commander for Kupwara districts. He also used to travel to Srinagar to plan and execute some of the operations of his outfit,” Mr. uz-Zamaan said. There were no casualties among civilians, the Army or the police, he said. Some locals claimed that the militant “seemed to have been killed in a fake encounter” after his arrest. According to them, there was little evidence of an encounter at the site. Officials maintained that Afghani died in a “brief encounter” after he turned down the offer of peaceable surrender and fired from his pistol from a cowshed that was brought down with an improvised explosive device.
Afghani, according to the police, had carried out a number of guerilla strikes on Army convoys and was believed to be among the six LeT militants who beheaded a head constable in July last year.
