Director General of Police (J&K) Dilbagh Singh Wednesday said that the slain militant killed in Nunar, Ganderbal incident was the “right hand” of slain Hizbul Mujahideen chief operational commander Reyaz Naikoo and had been working as an Over Ground Worker (OGW) before joining the Hizb outfit actively a few months ago.
“Yesterday, evening, militants targeted the BJP vice president Ghulam Qadir in Nunner area of Ganderbal. Qadir is a protected person with two PSOs. One of his PSOs Altaf Hussain retaliated and killed one militant but he sustained bullet wounds. Unfortunately, the brave cop lost his life while saving the protected person,” DGP Singh told reporters on the sidelines of wreath laying ceremony slain cop Altaf Hussain in Srinagar, as per news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO).
He said the slain militant killed in retaliation by the PSO Altaf Hussain was the close aide of slain Hizb chief operational commander Reyaz Naikoo. “He has been identified as Shabir Ahmed of Awantipore (Pulwama). He was the right hand of Naikoo and was working as OGW for Hizb for a long time. He had joined active militancy just a few months ago and was associated with Hizbul Mujahideen outfit,” the DGP Singh said, as per KNO. “Shabir was tasked to carry out target hitting of BJP leader in Ganderbal.”
Asked how an active militant from South Kashmir was able to reach Ganderbal, the DGP said that for a militant it’s not a big deal to travel from one district to another.
On the recent highway attacks on the security forces, the DGP Singh said that drones and other technical support is being used to monitor the militant movement on highways. “Drones were earlier used as well. We are using other technical support to monitor militant movement on the highways. In many cases, we have killed the attackers on highways in counter attacks,” he said