A day after the arrest of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Nadeem Abrar Bhat, police on Tuesday said he was killed in an exchange of crossfire with an unidentified foreign militant at Maloora on Srinagar’s outskirts.
The LeT commander, who, according to police, was involved in the attack on the CRPF patrol at Lawaypora (in which three CRPF jawans were killed) in March, was arrested at Parimpora at a checkpost on Monday.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police spokesman said they received input about militants carrying out an attack on highway.
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“Keeping in view the seriousness of the input, a few joint nakas of JKP and CRPF were put up along the highway. On Monday, at Parimpora naka, we stopped a vehicle and asked for the identity of the passengers. The person sitting on the rear seat opened his bag and took out a grenade. The naka party swiftly swung into action and grabbed the person. Both the driver and the passenger were taken to the police station where we identified the passenger as Abrar, a top LeT Commander. He was jointly interrogated by JKP, CRPF and the Army. One pistol and hand grenades were recovered from his possession.”
He said that he had kept his AK-47 rifle in a house in Maloora.
{{/usCountry}}He said that he had kept his AK-47 rifle in a house in Maloora.
{{/usCountry}}“There after he was taken to that house to recover the weapon. When the party was entering the house to recover the alleged weapon, one of his associates, a Pakistani terrorist (about whom he didn’t disclose anything) hiding inside the house fired at the party.”
The spokesman said that In the initial firefight, three CRPF personnel were injured and Abrar was hit in the ensuing crossfire.
“The injured personnel were evacuated and the rest of the party called for reinforcements. The Pakistani terrorist and Abrar were killed in the crossfire. Two AK-47 rifles along with ammunitions were recovered from the site.”
Police said that Abrar was involved in several killings of security forces and had joined the militants’ ranks in 2018. Police had intensified the search for him after the attack on CRPF at Lawaypora on March 25 in which his name had surfaced as one of the attackers.