The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Wednesday said that they killed three suspected militants in a gunfight in Srinagar’s Rambagh area.
One of the militants has been identified as Mehran Yaseen Shalla, a top commander of The Resistance Front, the Jammu and Kashmir Police said in a statement. Shalla was involved in the killings of two teachers and other civilians in Srinagar, Kashmir Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar told ANI.
The Resistance Front is believed to be an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The two other militants who were killed are Manzoor Ahmad Mir and Arafat Ahmad Sheikh, both residents of Pulwama, the police said.
A police spokesperson in a statement accessed by Kashmir Observer said that the officers had acted on their “own specific input” regarding the presence of militants in Rambagh area of Srinagar.
The gunfight ensued when after a team of Srinagar Police asked the suspected militants to stop their vehicle. However, they did not stop the vehicle and opened fire at the policemen, according to the police’s statement.
Meanwhile, the residents claimed that the three suspected militants were dragged down from the car and shot dead, according to Kashmir Observer. Other witnesses claimed that a gunfight did not take place at all.
The residents protested in the area and shouted anti-police slogans.
The internet was suspended in some areas of downtown Srinagar, residents told Scroll.in. The web connectivity had not returned until Thursday noon.
The Jamalatta area of downtown Srinagar, from where one of the deceased militants hailed, witnessed protests and clashes on Wednesday night. There is a shutdown on Thursday and heavy deployment of police and paramilitary forces.
This is the second operation in the past four days where security forces have killed suspected militants in the Union Territory.
On Saturday, security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district had killed the district commander of militant group Hizbul Mujahideen Mudasir Ahmad Wagay in a gunfight, according to the police.
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