The police have confirmed that one of the three suspected militants killed in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district on March 12 was from the town of Manuguru in Telangana, the Hindustan Times reported. The Telangana Police claimed that Islamic State jihadist propaganda on social media had radicalised 26-year-old Mohammad Taufeeq.
“He was not wanted in any of the criminal cases in Telangana state,” NDTV quoted the police as saying. “Further details are being verified and will be updated to the media accordingly.”
Their statement came a day after the Ansar Ghazwatul Hind – a Kashmiri outfit with alleged links to Al Qaeda – claimed that Taufeeq was from Hyderabad. Wanted militant Zakir Musa leads the terror group.
The militant group said: “Responding to the call of shariat or shahadat [martyrdom], Mohammad Taufeeq started his jihadi journey in 2017 after making hijrah [migration] from India’s Hyderabad city to the mountains of Kashmir and was among the first in the ranks of Ansar Ghazwatul Hind.”
The security forces were conducting searches in the Hakura area of Anantnag late on Sunday when the militants fired at them. The two other militants who were killed in the ensuing encounter were identified as Eesa Fazli from Srinagar and Syed Owais from Kokernag.
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