Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, May 19: Top Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) commander and most wanted militant in Kashmir valley, Mohammad Qasim, and other commanders of the outfit today slipped out of security forces cordon in Central Kashmir district of Budgam and killed one Army jawan and injured three others.
Sources said that Army’s 53 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) of counter insurgency Victor Force and Special Operation Group (SOG) of Jammu and Kashmir Police cordoned off Kaisermula village in Chadoora area of Budgam district in Central Kashmir this afternoon. As the security forces zeroed in on a residential house belonging to one Bashir Ahmad, militants fired indiscriminately at the troops injuring four Army personnel. Bashir in whose house the top commanders had taken shelter is in Railway police and is posted in South Kashmir district of Anantnag. Police arrested him this evening and are questioning him for his role in militancy.
The injured Army men were rushed to Army’s 92 Base Hospital at Badami Bagh Cantonment where one of them identified as Mir Mushtaq of Chadoora, succumbed to injuries. He belonged to 162 Battalion of Territorial Army and was attached with 53 RR.
The other three injured Army men were identified as Rifleman Jogindra, Rifleman Sandeep Kumar and Rifleman Teerath Kumar.
Sources said that the militants who fled from the cordon are Divisional Commander of LeT for South Kashmir, Mohammad Qasim; LeT District Commander for Budgam Dujana; LeT district commander for Pulwama, Irshad Ahmad; LeT militants, Shoukat Ahmad Tak and Bilal Ahmad.
Reinforcements of SOG Srinagar, SOG Budgam and army were sent to the area and search operation was extended to the adjacent areas of Naibogh and Bogam to track down the militants who fled from the cordon.
These LeT militants are most wanted militants in South Kashmir and Central Kashmir and are responsible for majority of the militant attacks including the attack on an Army convoy last year in Hydepora Bypass in which 8 Army personnel were killed and over a dozen were injured.
In the meantime, a minor was killed and another injured today when a littered shell exploded in Central Kashmir’s Tosamaidan firing range of Army.
Twelve year old Simran Riyaz and her eight year old brother Fayaz Ahmad were fiddling with an unexploded shell in Drang area when it exploded, critically injuring them. “Simran died instantly and Faizan was rushed to hospital in Budgam from where he was referred to a Srinagar hospital for treatment,” an official said here.
Reports said that the duo had gone to a nearby forest to collect fire wood. When they were on way to their home, they saw an object and took it with them and started to play with it outside their house.
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