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Prime accused of Pulwama attack killed in an encounter

Two militants, including a top Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) commander who police say belonged to the family of Masood Azhar, were killed in a gunfight in Pulwama, south Kashmir, on Saturday morning. The commander was the mastermind behind an attack on a CRPF convoy in Pulwama in 2019 that left 40 dead.

Mohammad Ismail Alvi, also known as Saifullah, Adnan, or Lamboo (tall), was cornered by a joint team off Nagberan Tarsar, a forest area in Pulwama. General Officer Commanding (GoC), Rashim Bali, called the killing ‘probably the biggest strike of the year’. The militant who was killed with him has yet to be identified.

Saifullah was the main suspect in the Lethpora (Pulwama) attack. According to Vijay Kumar, the IGP of Kashmir, seven of the 19 accused have been killed and seven have been arrested, while five remain at large. Saifullah was an expert in making improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and the forces expect their attacks using IEDs to stop now.

Lt Gen D P Pandey, GoC, 15 Corps, said Saifullah trained several militants to create and deploy IEDs, as well as identifying locals who were then brainwashed, radicalized and armed. Khan said Saifullah, who was related to Pakistan-based Jaish chief Masood Azhar, had entered Kashmir in 2017 winter through the Shikargah sector and had been active in South Kashmir since then. According to the forces, 14 FIRs had been filed against him. They claimed two AK-47 rifles, a Glock pistol and a Chinese pistol had been captured from the slain militants.

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Bali said that the Army had received a tip-off regarding Saifullah on July 27, but because it was raining heavily in the area, they took a circuitous route to find him. ‘On Saturday morning, the men focused on the cluster of dhoks (a kind of living quarter). Barking dogs may have alerted them (the terrorists). The women were first pushed out, followed by the children. They opened automatic fire from behind and lobbed grenades. But because the cordon was tight, the well-trained boys of the Victor Force retaliated as soon as they fired’, the GoC reported

Both terrorists were dead in two to three minutes, according to Bali. CRPF officers were attacked on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway on February 14, 2019 by a fidayeen driver named Adil Ahmad Dar. First of its kind, the attack had threatened to lead to a full-blown war between India and Pakistan.

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