STATE TIMES NEWS
Srinagar: Five Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists were arrested from Anantnag district in connection with the killing of a circus worker last month, police said on Friday.
Deepak Kumar (27), a resident of Udhampur district, was shot dead by two motorcycle-borne militants from a close range when he had gone to the market to buy milk on the night of May 29. He worked at a circus in the Janglat Mandi area in the south Kashmir district.
Arms, ammunition recovered
Baramulla: Security forces on Friday recovered arms and ammunition in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.
The old and rusted arms and ammunition were recovered from the Chakseri area of the north Kashmir district, the officials said. They said the recoveries include three AK 56 rifles, eight magazines, and 237 AK rounds.
The prime accused in the case received weapon training through WhatsApp video calls from his handler, police said.
Addressing a press conference in Anantnag, Deputy Inspector General (DIG), South Kashmir Range, Rayees Mohammad Bhat said the terrorists belong to Kashmir Freedom Fighters (KFF) — an offshoot of proscribed terror outfit JeM.
“Investigations and searches were launched after the incident. During the investigations, we got some technical leads and some clues. In the meantime, we zeroed in on some suspects and they were interrogated,” Bhat said.
He said the investigations pointed at two terrorists Sehran Bashir Nadaf son of Bashir Ahmad Nadaf resident of Shirpora Deva Colony and Ubaid Nazir Laigroo son of Nazir Ahmad Laigroo resident of Shirpora New Colony, who had gone missing.
“We launched a massive search operation to nab them. Based on technical and human intelligence, we were ultimately able to arrest these two accused after which the whole conspiracy was revealed,” he said.
Apart from Nadaf and Laigroo, three others — , Umer Amin Thoker son of Mohd Amin resident of Waghama, Huzaif Shabir Bhat son of Shabir Ahmad Bhat resident of Wachi Shopian and Nasir Farooq Shah son of Farooq Ahmad Shah resident of Wanteng Mohalla Bijbehara- have been arrested, the DIG said.
So far, one AK-47 rifle, one AK-47 magazine, 40 AK-47 rounds, two pistols, two pistol magazines, seven pistol rounds and empty cartridges each, three hand grenades, seven mobile phones and a scooter have been seized. Further leads are being followed, he said.
Bhat said this group of terrorists had been working in south Kashmir for some time.
“We expect more arrests and further revelations. This is a classic example of a hybrid terrorist module,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a statement, police said prime accused Nadaf had been trained by a terrorist handler identified with the alias Khalid Kamran, via WhatsApp video calls regarding the usage of weaponry.
They had been instructed to find and attack minority community soft targets and instructed about the mode of recce and other details, police said.
The entire conspiracy of how weapons were sourced, passed on and routed to the actual trigger puller and how to maintain communication discipline as well as how to cover tracks and hide evidence has been uncovered, it said, adding that more leads are under investigation and some further developments in the case are expected.