Mohit Kandhari  

Inspector General of Jammu and Kashmir police, Kashmir range, Vijay Kumar on Thursday claimed by eliminating Chief Operational Commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, Riyaz Naikoo, the security forces have broken the back bone of pro-Pakistan terror outfit in South Kashmir.

Kumar also claimed that with the elimination of Naikoo, the rate of recruitment of local cadre would certainly decline across South Kashmir. Since implementation of nation wide lockdown over 30 terrorists have been eliminated across Kashmir valley, majority in south Kashmir districts.

Addressing a media conference in Srinagar, Vijay Kumar told reporters, “the police officers were tracking the movement of Riyaz Naikoo for almost last six months”. He said, the police officers toiled hard to generate pin pointed intelligence about his presence in Beighpora area of South Kashmir’s Pulwama district where he was eliminated in the six hour long operation on May 6.

Police sources claimed, the security forces had infiltrated in to the OGW network of HM commander, Riyaz Naikoo and persistent follow up lead to specific input about his presence inside a house in Beighpora area before the operation was launched.

IG, Kashmir said, in the past we had busted around six hideouts of Riyaz Naikoo and this was his seventh hideout. The operation was launched in the area on Tuesday evening and the tight cordon was maintained by the security forces through out the night before launching the final assault on Wednesday morning to eliminate Naikoo. The house, where he was hiding was blasted by the security forces.

Referring to surge in terror attacks on security forces in North Kashmir belt of Handwara, Vijay Kumar claimed, in two recent operations in Handwara, security forces lost senior officers in action but they also managed to eliminate a dreaded Pakistani terrorist Haidar. He was back bone of Lashkar-e-Toiba outfit in North Kashmir, he added.

Responding to a quesiton whether terror groups are attempting to revive terror activities in Handwara, IG Kumar said, “we cannot say terror groups are regrouping in Handwara and trying to revive their bases in the dense forest areas”.

He said, last year 35 terrorists were killed in different anti-terrorist operations while this year so far we have killed 9 terrorists in the region. He said the attack on CRPF jawans in Wangam area of Handwara was carried out by two local commanders of LeT. He said we have identified them and soon we would be able to eliminate them.

Talking about their future strategy on tackling the increasing number of terror attacks on security forces, IG Kashmir said, the anti-terror operations will continue and there will be no slow down on them.

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Courtesy: Pioneer: 8th May, 2020