Two militants including the ‘chief’ of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, Zakir Rashid Bhat alias Zakir Musa, were killed in an encounter with Security Forces (SFs) at Dadsara village in Tral in Pulwama District of Jammu and Kashmir on May 23, reports Daily Excelsior. Senior Police officials said that SFs had launched a cordon and search operation at Dadsara village and when the militants tried to escape a gunfight broke out. They said efforts were made to make them surrender but the request fell on deaf ears and the holed-up terrorists started lobbing grenades using a launcher.
Zakir Rashid Bhat (24) quit Civil Engineering course he was doing in Chandigarh in 2013 to become a militant of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM). After differences with HM, he formed his own group and was named as chief of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an affiliate of al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, spontaneous ‘stone-pelting’ protests and broke out in Shopian, Pulwama, Awantipora and downtown Srinagar, with people raising slogans in favour of Zakir Musa, reports Daily Excelsior.