SRINAGAR: Police today said the fourth man killed in CRPF firing at Shopian on September 7 was Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant Abdullah Haroon.
“That is established. The person who was killed in Gagran (Shopian) is Abdullah Haroon. Every evidence has substantiated that… That is an established fact. It has been confirmed by our sources in various places,” Inspector General of Police (Kashmir) Abdul Gani Mir told reporters here.
He said the slain militant was identified by a number of persons including a top Lashkar commander Fahadullah, who was arrested by security forces in April this year.
Many local residents and separatist outfits had alleged that the fourth person killed in the September 7 incident at Shopian was a non-Kashmiri labourer.
The IGP said Haroon was part of a 10-member Lashkar squad which had migrated from Sopore in north Kashmir towards south Kashmir.
“We have all the evidence (to prove that he was Haroon). The investigations carried out, the things seized right from the mobile (phone), pistol and grenades…In mobile we got this video which certainly proved that this module was there,” he said.
He said in the video, there are weapons which were snatched from a policeman and a CRPF man from two different places in south Kashmir some time back.
Mir said the mobile phone recovered from the scene of firing incident had DIALER and SKIPE applications. “The DIALER and SKIPE, not Skype, are only used by Lashkar militants.”
Giving details of the incident on September 7, Mir said four youth riding two motorcycles were passing by the Gagran CRPF camp at Shopian.
“The first motorcycle was stopped. Then another motorcycle came…One person took out a pistol and fired. In retaliation, as you know, four persons were killed,” he said.
The IGP said while there was no militancy record against the three local youth killed in the firing incident, relatives of two of the deceased were involved in militancy.
“One person’s brother was a militant and was killed in 2006, another’s brother was killed while trying to cross the Line of Control in 1992. The third person – Tawseef – was booked under Public Safety Act (PSA) because of stone pelting.
“We are investigating under what circumstances these persons were accompanying the Lashkar militant. At least two of them – Tariq and Yousuf, let me tell you, were not on an excursion with the Lashkar militant,” he added. (AGENCIES)
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