New Delhi: Two militants were killed in the Rainawari area of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, on Wednesday, around midnight, in an encounter between militants and security forces.
These were two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants. Following a cordon and search operation in Srinagar, the encounter broke out, a police official said, according to a report by news agency PTI. The police official also said that the two militants were killed in the brief gunbattle.
Kashmir Zone Police said on Twitter that one of the killed terrorists, Rayees Ahmad Bhat, was earlier a journalist and was running online news portal Valley Media Service in Anantnag. Kashmir Zone Police also said that he had terrorist ranks in 2021, and that two First Investigation Reports (FIRs) are already registered against him for terror crimes.
The second militant killed in the Srinagar encounter has been identified as Hilal Ah Rah of Bijbehara, a 'C' categorised terrorist, Kashmir Zone Police said.
Quoting Inspector General of Kashmir Zone Police Vijay Kumar, a PTI report said that one of the slain militants was carrying a ‘press card’. Kumar tweeted: “One of the killed categorised local #terrorists of proscribed #terror outfit LeT was carrying Identity Card (ID) of media. It indicates a clear case of misuse of media”.
Rayees Ahmad Bhat was the Editor in Chief of Valley Media Service, according to the card retrieved by Kashmir Police.