New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir Police on Monday said the security forces gunned down two Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants in an overnight encounter in Pulwama district. “In the ensuing encounter, two terrorists, identified as Abid Hussain Shah and Saqib Azad Sofi, were killed. They were affiliated with proscribed terror outfit JeM,” PTI quoted a police spokesperson as saying.


The spokesman said both slain men were, as per police records, categorized terrorists and part of groups involved in several terror crime cases, including attacks on police and civilian atrocities.


The police spokesperson said one of the slain terrorists was involved in the killing of police constable Reyaz Ahmad earlier this month.


“Pertinently, the killed terrorist Abid Shah was involved in the recent killing of unarmed policeman Constable Reyaz Ahmad at his residential house at Gadoora area of Pulwama on 13th May, 2022,” the news agency quoted the spokesman as saying in Srinagar.


The spokesman further said the security forces launched a joint cordon and search operation on a specific input generated by the Kulgam Police regarding the presence of terrorists in Pulwama’s Gundipora village.


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“During the search operation, as the joint search party approached towards the suspected spot, the hiding terrorists in the residential house of Nazir Ahmad Mir fired indiscriminately upon the search party which was retaliated leading to an encounter,” he said, adding that the operation was suspended during the night hours and resumed in the wee hours to avoid any collateral damage due to darkness.


Inspector General of Police (IGP) of Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, congratulated the security forces for carrying out the anti-terrorist operation in a professional manner without any collateral damage.


He also lauded the joint team for tracking and neutralising the terrorists involved in the recent killing of a policeman in Pulwama.


Asserting that police have succeeded to a large extent to prevent the youth from taking up arms and are working on multi-dimensional fronts to prevent local terrorist recruitment, Kumar said those who motivate and lure young boys towards terrorism are being booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA).


“We are also tracking new recruits through technical surveillance and bringing them back,” he told the media.