SRINAGAR, JUN 24 : Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbagh Singh on Thursday said that Baramulla district was militant free after three Lashkar-e-Taiba militants were killed in an encounter with security on Wednesday.
“Yesterday’s operation in Baramulla district in which three militants were killed makes Baramulla the first district of Kashmir with no surviving militant, as on date”. SSP Hussain, who heads the anti-miliatncy drive in the district, said the focus is not just on killing the militants but also ensuring that recruitment into the network does not take place.
“We have worked hard to target the support network of these militants,” he said. “In the last year, only one local boy was recruited from this district and he has been neutralised, he added.
The officer said that police have worked with families of terrorists and have helped some of them to renounce violence. “The real success is when we don’t allow recruitment to take place. And that is what we are focusing on,” he said.
Sources said that that about 50 militants belonging to the district had been killed in different operations by the security forces in Baramulla and the LoC in the last two years the print reported.
What is significant is that many over-ground workers, who could have become active terrorists, were neutralised by detention and counselling during the same period. Situated on the bank of Jhelum River downstream from Srinagar, Baramulla district has been the hotbed for militants’ activities.
The slain militants were affiliated with proscribed outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba and identified as Suhaib Farooq Akhoon, Mohsin Mushtaq Bhat and Nasir Ahmad Darzi, the official said.
