Five Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists, including top operational commander Farooq Ahmed Butt, were killed in an encounter with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Thursday, officials said. Speaking of the joint operation, security forces called it a “huge success” for them. After the success of Operation Kulgam, the Army and Jammu Kashmir Police held a press conference to brief about the joint operation.
“I congratulate the 34 Army Police Kulgam and the Central Reserve Police Force for the successful execution of this operation,” said Brigadier General Anirudh Chauhan, 2RR Sector Commander. He further said, “Last night, we achieved great success in hunting down HM Group when we got information about the terrorists and we activated alert at Kadar village in Kulgam at midnight and 3.30 am line. We first evacuated the local population from the area and allowed the terrorists to continue to blockade the area, who fired indiscriminately and retaliated effectively, and then we eliminated five of the top Mujahideen terrorists.
Chauhan also said that among the terrorists killed in the joint operation was Hizbul Mujahideen’s operational commander Farooq Ahmed Butt. He joined the ranks of terrorists in 2015 and since 2016 he has been instigating militants in Kashmir and urging them to join Hizbul Mujahideen. He is recruiting youth from Kashmir and is very active in this regard.
The senior official further said that the killing of Butt and his associates represents a major setback for the Hezbollah Mujahideen in south Kashmir. “Two of our soldiers were injured and are in stable condition and will be back to join us soon,” he said. “This is a huge setback for Hizbul Mujahideen but we cannot say it is all over for them; there will be peace in Kashmir soon and we are working towards that,” the commander said.
DIG South Kashmir Javid Matto, who was also present at the press conference, said five terrorists were killed. All five terrorists are from Kulgam district, Farooq joined in 2015 and Mushtaq joined in 2020, they were involved in many FIRs, Farooq had 37 FIRs including one against His FIR involved a rape case. He said it was a joint operation.
Javid added: “We have had information about their activities in the area for the past few months and since the past two weeks we have increased our vigilance against them and last night there was an encounter in which the group was neutralized. ” He said the encounter lasted 5-6 hours.
They are old terrorists, not new ones. One, new recruitment is coming, we have had many successful operations in south Kashmir over the past few months and this is a major operation. Security forces recovered a large cache of arms and ammunition, including lakhs of rupees, from the bodies. Items recovered include 1 AK56, 4 AK47, 2 grenades, 70 rounds of ammunition, 21 magazines, 5 bags and cash worth 2-3 lakh.
This is a major success for security forces in south Kashmir since October 20.