‘Shopian operation a major success, Waseem was top commander of Hizb, Adil Sheikh had decamped with 7 Ak weapons from Ex-MLA’s house, anti-militancy Ops to be intensified in South ’
Faizan Wani
Srinagar: Hizbul Mujahideen is fast loosing ground in South Kashmir as many of its top commanders have been killed and in the last few weeks alone its district heads were killed along with their associates, Director General of Police (J&K), Dilbagh Singh told reporters here on Monday.
Addressing a press conference at Police Control Room (PCR) here, Director General of Police (DGP) Singh said Hizb is about to disappear from South Kashmir turf. “Anti-militancy operations in South Kashmir districts will be intensified. The year 2020 has started on a good note as far as anti-militancy operations were concerned.”
Replying to a query that today’s operation was third successful operation in a week and whether these operations were carried out on the inputs provided by the Naveed Babu, the DGP said that the after Babu’s revelations, police busted two major hideouts wherefrom militants had fled but lot of goods were recovered. In the days, ahead, anti-militancy operations will be intensified in South Kashmir districts.
The DGP said that three militants were killed today, who were involved in a series of anti-militancy operations. “Three militants including a top commander of Hizb identified as Waseem Ahmed Wani. He was active since 2017 and had 19 FIRs against him. With him, another militant Adil Bashir Sheikh of Zainapora Shopian, who had decamped with seven weapons and a pistol from the residence of former MLA Aijaz Ahmed in September 2018,” the DGP said. He said third slain militant was identified as Jehangir.
The trio led by Waseem were involved in the killing of four policemen and four civilians in Shopian district. “With these killing, the people of Shopian will heave a sigh of relief,” DGP Singh said. To a query whether it was painful to kill a policeman turned militant, he said that there was nothing painful. “Whosoever will go against the law or the land, will have to face the music,” the DGP said.
On whether handling Srinagar airport security to Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) reflects any mistrust on the J&K police by the Government of India, the DGP said that there was no question of mistrust as the exercise to handover airport security CISF was going on since past three years.
“Barring a few airports in the country, all are handled by the CISF. Teams of CISF arrived here five months back to review the security of airports and to work out how many men are to be deployed at Leh, Jammu and Srinagar airports. “The recent survey was conducted before three months,” he said.