Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 5

Jammu and Kashmir Police and CRPF personnel foiled a possible terror strike on Saturday killing three Lashkar-e-Toiba militants in the outskirts of the city after a five-hour operation, officials said.Four security personnel were injured in the gunfight but all of them are stated to be stable.The militants, according to the police, were planning to carry out the strike ahead May 7, when state government offices were to reopen in Srinagar after shifting from Jammu, the winter capital of the state.Protesters clashed with security forces to disrupt the counter-insurgency operation.The gunfight was triggered by a cordon and search operation launched by security forces at dawn in the city’s Chattabal locality.Locals said they heard intense exchange of gunfire in the morning as a large number of security forces rushed to the scene and sealed off the locality.The firefight continued for nearly five hours and ended with the killing of three militants. Immediately after the gunfight erupted, mobile internet services were shut down and restrictions imposed in volatile pockets of the city.The operation was swift and over in four hours with no collateral damage, Inspector General of Police (Kashmir Range) Swayam Prakash Pani said here after the operation.”On the basis of the materials recovered from the site, it was found that the terrorists belonged to the outlawed Lashkar-e-Toiba,” he added.One of the three militants was identified as Fayyaz Ahmed Hammal, who has been active for past one year.Officials said he is an illiterate, about 30 years of age and a resident of Khanka-e-Mohalla in downtown of the city. He was involved in some cases related to weapon snatching and terrorising people.Police officials believe that Hammal, who was earlier working at a printing press and an active stone-pelter, had been tasked to bring the two other militants, believed to be Pakistanis, to the city for carrying out an attack.The other two, according to doctors, were suffering from gangrene, a disease which is a result of frosbite that militants get while infiltrating from across the region in extreme cold conditions.Besides three AK rifles, a huge quantity of ammunition, including five magazines each, and a medical kit were recovered from the militants, police said.As the gunfight raged with intermittent pauses in Chattabal, a densely populated neighbourhood on edge of the city, clashes erupted between locals and security forces. The protesters tried to disrupt the counter-insurgency operation and pelted police and paramilitary forces with stones. A civilian identified as Adil Ahmad Yadoo, who was wounded in unclear circumstances at Noorbagh near the site of gunfight, was rushed to hospital where doctors declared him brought dead, the police said. The police said the youth died “due to a crush injury in a road accident”. The protesters, however, alleged that the youth was run over by a vehicle of security forces during clashes at Noorbagh.