Daily Times

SRINAGAR: Government forces in Indian-occupied Kashmir killed a top commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba Wednesday during a fierce firefight, police said, triggering clashes with protestors.

Naveed Jatt, the man killed on Wednesday, had dramatically escaped in February from a hospital in Srinagar where he was brought from jail for a check-up two years after his arrest. Two police officers accompanying Jatt were killed in a shootout inside the hospital before he was whisked away on a waiting motorbike.

Police say that Jatt was part of the group of assailants who killed prominent journalist Shujaat Bukhari in a daring attack inside Srinagar’s high security press area in June.

Jatt and another fighter were killed after they were trapped by soldiers, paramilitary forces and a police counterinsurgency unit surrounding the village of Chattergam in the central Kashmir valley. “It’s a success, a relief. Naveed Jatt is one among the two militants killed,” top police officer Munir Ahmad Khan said. “Jatt murdered two of our colleagues when he escaped (in February),” he said.

Three soldiers were wounded in the gun battle, another police officer said, adding several protestors who hit the streets near the site of firefight were also injured in police action.

Violence in Kashmir has left tens of thousands of people dead. This year has been the bloodiest in nearly a decade with at least 530 killed so far, including 145 civilians and nearly 400 combatants.

Published in Daily Times, November 29^th 2018.