In a major success, a joint team of security forces has neutralised five terrorists in the last 24 hours in two separate encounters in the south Kashmir district of Shopian.
One of the terrorists killed in the operation has been identified as Mukhtar Shah, who shot Virender Paswan, a street vendor from Bhagalpur area of Bihar, last week.
On the other hand, terrorists behind the targeted killing of schoolteachers and a prominent Kashmiri Pandit pharmacist have been identified by the security forces.
According to official sources these terrorists are believed to be cadres of LeT proxy terror outfit The Resistance Front (TRF).
According to official sources, the security forces have identified 25-year-old Basit Ahmed Dar, a resident of Kulgam, as kingpin of the “hit squad” who carried out the Pandits’ killing in Srinagar.
Dar had come on the radar of the security forces after he started working under the command of Abbas Sheikh, the self-styled chief of TRF.
According to official sources, Dar and three others — including Mehran Shalla, a youth in his early 20s and a resident of Nawa Kadal in downtown city, and another young man Adil — were part of a four-member terror squad that carried out the attacks on Hindus in the city.
The officials said the group was involved in the killing of Kashmiri Pandit businessman Makhan Lal Bindroo, school principal Supinder Kaur and teacher Deepak Chand, both of whom taught in the same school located at Eidgah.
