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Terrorist out for another targeted killing in Jammu and Kashmir neutralised; Pak connection surfaces

According to top Jammu and Kashmir police officials, three modules of six locals have been involved in the recent targeted killings of civilians, all of them led by terrorists from Pakistan.

Published on: Oct 8, 2021, 22:10:06 IST
By , Hindustan Times, New Delhi
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A terrorist was neutralised and another one escaped after an encounter with the Srinagar Police team on Friday evening. The terrorists were said to be out for one more targeted killing when they were intercepted by Srinagar police and opened fire. The encounter took place in Natipura, a locality in Srinagar.

Another terrorist who managed to escape is said to have infiltrated from across the border. (ANI)
Another terrorist who managed to escape is said to have infiltrated from across the border. (ANI)

Jammu and Kashmir Police said the terrorist who was killed during the encounter has been identified as Aqib Bashir Kumar, a resident of Shopian, who was affiliated with The Resistance Force (TRF), an offshoot of Pakistan terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba. Another terrorist who managed to escape is said to have infiltrated from across the border.

According to top Jammu and Kashmir police officials, three modules of six locals have been involved in the recent targeted killings of civilians, all of them led by terrorists from Pakistan.

The militants of the TRF have regrouped after the Jammu and Kashmir Police in August killed Mohd Abbas Sheikh, the top commander of the outfit. Sheikh was responsible for numerous attacks on civilians, lawmakers and security personnel. Sheikh was killed after terrorists were challenged by the police dressed in civvies and opened fire.

The Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir has been witnessing protests and marches after at least five civilians, all of them religious minorities in the Valley, were killed by terrorists this week. Supinder Kour, a Sikh woman school principal, and a Hindu teacher were killed by terrorists on Thursday.

TRF has claimed responsibility for the recent killings, including the murder of a prominent pharmacist Makhan Lal Bindroo, a Kashmiri Pandit.

Union home minister Amit Shah is likely to visit Jammu and Kashmir later this month as part of the government’s mass outreach programme and review development schemes. In the last four weeks, several Union ministers visited Jammu and Kashmir as part of the outreach programme.

  • Shishir Gupta
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Shishir Gupta

    Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More