Two days after four Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists were gunned down in a fierce encounter that broke out in the forest area in the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, the state police on Thursday said that one of the four militants was the group’s ‘operational commander’.
“Operational commander of JeM Mufti Yasir was among those killed in joint operation in upper reaches of Tral,” tweeted State Director General of Police (DGP) SP Vaid with a picture showing Yasir with a gun beside JeM’s Pakistan-based chief Masood Azhar.
The picture had been taken in Pakistan few years ago by the media there.
Four JeM militants, one soldier and a state police constable were killed in the over eight-hour-long gunfight.
Azhar was released from Kotbalwal jail in Jammu district in 1999 and taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan where he was swapped with the 158 passengers of Indian Airlines flight IC 814 taken hostage.
Two other militant commanders, Sheikh Omar and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, were also swapped in addition to Azhar for the release of hostages.
The flight was hijacked from Kathmandu and after a stopover at Amritsar it was taken to Kandahar.
(With IANS inputs.)
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