In a major success for the security forces, top Jaish-e-Mohammed commander Sajjad Afghani was eliminated by the Indian Army and the Jammu and Kashmir Police in Shopian’s Rawalpora area on Monday. The Indian Army had launched a search operation in the Shopian district on Saturday evening following inputs that some terrorists were hiding in the area. However, the operation was put on hold on Sunday night to ensure that the terrorists didn’t escape.
Later, the security forces said that Afghani’s aide, Lashkar-affiliated Jahangir Ahmad Wani from Rakh Narapora was also killed in the encounter on Sunday. The officials said that terrorists were given opportunity to surrender, but instead fired indiscriminately upon the joint search party, which retaliated, leading to the gunfight. The Jammu and Kashmir Police said that Wani was active since September 2020 and was involved in several terror crime cases including attacks on security forces and civilian atrocities. Arms and ammunition including USA made M4 Carbine rifle and other incriminating materials were recovered from the site of encounter so far. All the recovered materials have been taken into case records for further investigation and to probe his complicity in other terror crimes.
During the encounter, three houses caught fire while as a group of miscreants tried to disrupt the operation and created law and order problem near the encounter site during which some miscreants were also injured. A joint cordon and search operation was launched by the forces on Saturday. However, to track the other hiding terrorists, cordon and search operation in the area is still on.
