A suspected member of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, who was allegedly involved in the death of seven persons in an attack near a construction site in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ganderbal in October, was killed on Tuesday in a gunfight with security personnel in the Dachigam forests on the outskirts of Srinagar.

In a statement on social media, the police said that the suspected militant was identified as Junaid Ahmed Bhat and was part of the Lakshar-e-Taiba. “The said terrorist was involved in civilian killing at Gagangir, Ganderbal and several other terror attacks,” the statement read.

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The police said that a joint operation comprising personnel from the Army and the police began in Dachigam on Monday based on “specific intelligence inputs” about the presence of militants in the area.

During the operation, suspected militants and security personnel exchanged fire, resulting in Bhat’s death, The Indian Express quoted unidentified police officers as saying.

The statement clarified that the operation had not yet concluded as of Tuesday evening.

An unidentified police officer told NDTV that Bhat was a resident of Kulgam. He had been missing for a year before reappearing in CCTV footage of the attack in Ganderbal in October, in which he could be seen carrying an AK-series assault rifle, the officer claimed.

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Police officers said that a United States-made M4 carbine assault rifle was found on Bhat’s person after his death, The Indian Express reported.

On October 20, seven persons were killed in a militant attack on a labour camp set up near a construction site in Ganderbal. One of those killed was a doctor from Budgam district, while the other six were workers from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu.

The construction workers were employees of an infrastructure company that is building the Z-Morh tunnel on the Srinagar-Sonamarg road. They were staying at a camp set up for them along the Srinagar-Leh highway.

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